Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 595 Optional Rule: Management and Human Resources Certain folks extend their Will through the actions of other people. By managing and directing those other people, that sort of influence can turn human resources into instruments of magick. Now, we’re not talking about transforming codemonkeys into flying monkeys… although that, too, is possible, albeit really vulgar and a major violation of HR policies. Instead, an optional rule may – at the Storyteller’s discretion – allow certain Mage characters to use people as an instrument of their Arts. A specialty of Syndicate bosses (see Convention Book: Syndicate, pps. 71-72) and other mages who favor social acumen and hypereconomics, the Management and Human Resources instrument gets a pack of underlings to perform your magick for you. Generally, these employees and devotees are Sleepers, not mages in the Awakened sense. What they do is totally within normal human limitations. Properly directed, though, they can change Consensus Reality in subtle yet significant ways: buying shares to tip the stock market, posting videos that promote an idea, revealing a theory or concept that tilts the Consensus through popular appeal, spreading rumors that destroy a target’s reputation, using skills (medicine, transportation, fighting, finance) that the mage herself does not possess, and other everyday activities that have larger outcomes than people realize. It’s a “just say the word and it’s done” sort of magick that parlays social influence into altered reality. As an instrument, management and human resources demands time, patience, and connections. The average schmo cannot snap his fingers and have a magical cabbie deliver him instantly from New York to DC. Ah – but a manager with clout can call Transport Services and have a helicopter waiting nearby within minutes; two or three hours later, he’s gone from his executive suite in Manhattan to the steps of the Supreme Court, where an escort’s waiting to usher him into a meeting with the judges who’ll decide a case at the heart of U.S law… and thus, reality is changed. In game terms, the player could say that he used management as a tool of the dominion practice, focusing his belief in political power to perform a Correspondence 3/ Mind 3 Effect. No Paradox, little risk – that mage plays by Reality’s rules, at the cost of a bit of time, indirect action, and some socially leveraged power. (No, that mage does not use magick to conjure a helicopter and pilot – he’s using resources that already exist. For details, see the sidebar Axis of Coincidence, p. 533.) Social power is essential to this option. A mage using management and human resources needs to have at least three dots in at least two of the following Backgrounds, plus a concept that allows him to boss people around and expect them to obey: Necessary Management Background Traits Allies (to do favors) Backup (to deploy underlings) Contacts (to utilize social leverage) Cult (as per Backup) Fame (to get folks to help you) Influence (pretty obvious) Rank (reflects command and control) Resources (because when money talks, people jump) Retainers (that’s what they’re for, after all) Spies (to perform the supposedly impossible) Those underlings cannot do things that normal people could not accomplish. Turning folks into frogs is beyond this instrument, although turning them into fish food is totally do-able. Management takes time, too – you can say “from my lips to God’s ears,” but that “god” still acts on a human schedule. This rule’s not meant to allow players to craft lawngnome armies or blow up cities with a few well-placed words. Still, social power is a form of magick, and its effects (and Effects) within our world can be miraculous. Often simplified into mere relaxation, meditation actually runs much deeper than that. Given the hectic, distractionfilled world we live in, though, meditation’s certainly a useful tool for relaxation as well as focus on greater things. Mages use meditation to connect to Primal Force, bridge minds and emotions, reach out to higher (or lower) powers, perceive their surroundings on a sublime level, access their inner resources, and plan the next move in their activities. As a tool, then, meditation works for just about anything, so long as the character has time to stop moving, focus on the meditation, and screen out distractions long enough to find what she seeks. It doesn’t work well, obviously, in high-stress situations, although – given time – a character can use meditation to reduce her stress. Traditionally depicted as a person sitting in a lotus position while humming Ohm, meditation can take many different forms. Postures, katas, games, prayer, running, chanting, dance, sex, music, even certain forms of fighting can all function as meditation. The vital element is the mindset of the person
596 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition meditating. If she views her practice as a meditative connection, and if it takes her where she needs to go, then almost anything can be a form of meditation. For further details, see the Meditation Ability in Chapter Six. Money and Wealth: Money itself is a magic(k) trick. Essentially a symbolic token of trust, money defines a person’s val-you within society. Societies, too, get defined by how much they’re worth, so human and social realities are shaped by something that has no intrinsic value beyond what people think it means. (That trick’s even more profound when you consider virtual money; burning dollar bills generate very little heat, but numbers in a database generate no heat at all.) Obviously, then, money provides a magickal focus for folks who know how to use it… and no faction understands money as well as the Syndicate does. As a magickal tool, money has two potential forms: physical cash and virtual trade. Cash – paper money, coins, tokens, and so forth – allows the mage to pass along an Effect by passing along the cash. A $20.00 bill could carry a mind Effect that reminds someone of his mother; a Spanish piece of eight could bear an ancient curse; a defaced dollar bill might feature the message THIS IS NOT YOUR GOD stamped in red ink, focusing a Mind or Entropy Effect that degrades people’s trust in social institutions. Cash often holds Resonance too, especially if it’s been tainted by criminal acts or emotional desperation. As any mage knows, blood money is a real thing when you understand Resonance. Virtual trade focuses Mind and/ or Entropy Effects that get people to believe that abstract numbers determine their fate. Checks, credit and debit cards, credit ratings, bank statements, and approval processes reflect uses of virtual trade. Such tools can be extraordinarily effective and dangerous. At the time this section was originally written, in real life, the United States government was temporarily shut down over an imaginary crisis built around virtual values that have no physical counterpart, only the emotional reality of what people think a bunch of numbers mean. Societies can rise and fall over such ideas, so the practice of hypereconomics (see The Art of Desire/ Hypereconomics) manipulates virtual trade on a scale far beyond the possibilities of physical cash. Music: One of the oldest magickal tools, music harnesses the powers of sound, art, memes, social influence, voices, symbols, and – in one way or another – many of the other tools on this list. A full exploration of the esoteric potential of music runs far beyond this space, and although its most obvious adherents include the Celestial Chorus, Bata’a, Dreamspeakers, Cult of Ecstasy, and Hollow Ones, any group or mage can use music as an instrument of focus. As a general rule, music’s vibrations carry the spell caster’s intentions into the world. That music can be broadcast to a mass audience, performed for a smaller audience, or created in solitude for personal Effects. For obvious reasons, music takes time to perform but makes an ideal instrument for rituals, especially when a number of characters are working together to weave the Effect. Depending upon the character, his audience, and the scope of the Effect, that music can range from quiet humming to a full-scale orchestral symphony. Lullabies, rock operas, chamber music, plaintive solo flute, vocalized chants… if there’s a way to perform music, then there’s a mystical practice associated with that type of performance. Nanotech: Composed of miniscule, self-replicating machines, nanotechnology involves the study and design of productive engines on the molecular and atomic level. To Consensus reality, such technologies are largely theoretical; to technomancers – most especially the innovators of Iteration X and the Society of Ether – they’re an essential tool for Enlightened Procedures. Although all groups have been holding back that level of technology from the Masses (the consensus is that the Masses can’t be trusted with it, and that’s probably correct), nanotech forms a common instrument for Life and Matter Effects… most especially those Procedures that either build or repair structures or organisms. Technocratic healing Procedures often involve nanotech patches, and machines that grow out of nowhere actually spring from high-intensity (read: vulgar) nanotech clusters that create material structures faster than the human eye can follow. That speed, combined with the high level of energy and material resources involved (in game terms, the amount of Quintessence they consume), keep nanotech out of wider use. Although favored Technocracy personnel employ nanotech instruments in many Threat Level A responses, the risks and requirements of existing nanotech… most especially the awful potential consequences of unregulated proliferation (read: someone else using the stuff)… assure that such innovations will remain restricted to certain agents and application within the foreseeable future. Numbers and Numerology: Numbers hold power. As mentioned above under the Formulae entry, that power can be unlocked through arcane mathematics. Sometimes, though, all you need is a single number – nine, for example – to seal your mystical intentions. On a related note, the occult practice of numerology draws connections between specific numbers and the deeper levels of Creation. As such, it provides a venerable focus for Correspondence, Spirit, Prime, or Time Arts, acting as a tool for understanding the ties between one thing and another. And so, beyond the baroque patterns of number theory, simple numbers or numerical correspondences (Bible verses, racing horses, sports-team player numbers, etc.) can be remarkably potent tools when they get assigned to something you’re trying to accomplish. Offerings and Sacrifices: Often, the best way to prove that you really want something involves giving up something else in order to obtain your goal. Thus, sacrifice (“to make sacred”) holds a precious, though controversial, place in mystic practices. Essentially, a person offers up something precious – property, behavior, living things, even her own life – in order to seal a deal with the Powers That Be.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 597 Typically associated with maleficia, sacrifice has an understandably bad rap. Slitting Fido’s throat in order to summon devils is a terrible idea for all kinds of reasons. And yet, the custom of offering things up has deep spiritual roots in even the most virtuous traditions. Jesus, Raven, Odin, Prometheus… all of them sacrificed themselves in order to achieve a greater goal. Mortal devotees – Awakened and otherwise – use sacrifice as both a tool and a display of spiritual commitment. Even atheists understand the value of such offerings; it takes money, after all, to make money. In game terms, a sacrifice involves giving up an offering as a tool in accomplishing the Effect. The nature and severity of that sacrifice depends upon the mage, her practice, and the goal she wants to achieve. Using the Prime Sphere, a mage could also harvest Quintessence from a sacrifice. But although live offerings have literally vital significance within many cultures, killing something in order to further your own ends raises obvious moral and legal questions, especially in our current era. For more details, see the sourcebook How Do You DO That?. Ordeals and Exertion: Pain has a marvelous way of focusing your attention. From the gruesome splendor of the Lakota sun-dance to the more prosaic practice of cutting, people employ techniques of significant anguish as methods for either getting out of their heads or, in contrast, getting “under the skin” to find the deeper layers there. Many mystic practices (and certain technological ones, too) employ agony as a tool for focus. Athletic exertions, too, count toward such goals. Marathons, pumping iron, cage-fighting, extreme sports… they all take you out of the routine and into the moment and thus provide focus through intense experience. Physically, such exertions are ordeals – challenges that take a person to her limits and show her how much she’s capable of doing. And so, for certain mages (especially Akashics, Thanatoics, Ecstatics, shamans, and Technocrats), the practice of intentional exertion provides a physical and symbolic way to “break on through” and reach new levels of reality. Prayers and Invocations: Reaching out to higher or lower powers for support, a person can, with any luck, secure aid from the force in question. Among religious people, that force tends to be the god they worship or intercessors like saints, Loa, bodhisattvas, or guardian angels. Certain desperate folks, however, pray to devils or rival gods – a heretical but surprisingly common practice. Prayer could be considered a form of meditation too, especially when it’s part of a daily ritual. For religious mages, prayer is THE instrument of choice. No other focus works as well or brings a devotee closer to his god. Invocations aren’t always prayers, but they still call in potent forces. Essentially, the mage speaks names or words of power (see Languages and Voice) in order to make things happen. Materialist mages do this too; it’s amazing how effective certain phrases (“Nothing to see here,” “Death before dishonor,” “It’s a fact – you can look it up”) can be when you say them with intention. An invocation speaks Will into activity, so buzzwords and battle cries figure prominently in the Arts of Change.
598 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Sacred Iconography: The Qur’an. The cross. The pentacle. The Tau. Icons and scriptures. Prayer wheels and hell-money. The rich iconography of human religions provides an essential focus for mages of faith. Depending on the character’s creed, the symbols in question could be brandished while casting an Effect; employed in rituals; worn simply as a reflection of faith; or possibly – for enemies of that faith – desecrated or destroyed in order to insult the creed in question, mock the power of its god(s), or co-opt that religion’s resources in order to take them for oneself. In either case, those symbols contain potent emotional symbolism in addition to their potential mystic power. Sacred materials almost always contain a strong Resonance from that faith. In certain cases – like the legendary power of the cross – that Resonance focuses the invested power of millions of believers… which may provide a metaphysical reason for the force such icons have against certain enemies of that faith (like, say, vampires). Employed by a mage from the appropriate religion, a powerful instrument of faith – holy water, sanctified earth, a famous shrine, and so on – could contain a bit of Quintessence that it lends to the mage in question. Holy symbols tend to make certain Effects coincidental when they’re performed among faithful Sleepers, too; a group of devout Catholics won’t be surprised to see a priest perform a miracle. Sex and Sensuality: Sex is fun. Sex is scary. Sex is the most intimate thing you can share with another person, short of killing or giving birth. Hence, sex and sensuality (that is, close but not necessarily sexual contact) hold places of honor and shame among many mystical and technological practices. Certain disciplines – Left-Hand and Westernized Tantra, Gardnerian Wicca, Taoist sexual alchemy, the reclaimed Qadishtu tradition, and other forms of sacred eros – employ sex acts to focus life energy and dedicated magicks. Others simply stage orgies and Bacchanalia as tools for ecstatic worship, mysticism, and release. As the entries about Bodywork and Energy suggest, sex rituals provide intimate contact for mystics both Awakened and otherwise. Sometimes regarded as communion between masculine and feminine polarities, other times used to break down concepts of gender and identity, occasionally corrupted into violation (especially in maleficia), and frequently employed as initiation (particularly in the Cult of Ecstasy, the Verbena, and certain Hermetic lodges and religious orders), ritualized sexuality mingles the primal essence of all parties involved. Given that level of contact, such practices share Resonance and make ideal instruments for Life, Mind, and Prime Arts… although, as certain lovers can attest, sex has a way of making Time move faster or slower for you, too. Social Domination: The superior person does not wait on the whims of others. That person – male or female – moves the world through force of personality. He might not be a tyrant – he might, in fact, be most effective when he isn’t one – but his word commands respect. Mages are superior people, and the most dominant of them use that knowledge to impose their Will upon the people in their lives. The art of “alphaing” people isn’t necessarily what folks think it is. Although Alpha-Male/ Bitch types do tend to get their way in the short term, people resent them for it, often screwing them over out of vindictive spite. The most effective dominant people make people glad to be in their service. They inspire love as well as respect, and they garner long-term loyalty as a result. Sometimes, though, short-term results are enough to work with. A bully can impose dominance upon people, turning them into agents of his Enlightened Will. And really, let’s not kid ourselves: abusive bastards run corporations, governments, cults, and even Traditions. The word sociopath is so loaded these days. We’ll simply call those people movers and shakers: they move, and you shake. As a magickal instrument, social dominance plays out through command of group situations. Rank, eye contact, imposing body language, and sometimes threats provide the obvious tactics, but a seriously dominant person evokes that impression by simply being there. Presence and eloquence work far better than brutality, so a mage who uses domination – a prized skill in the Technocracy, but useful in every other faction too – directs his Arts (typically Entropy, Mind, Life, and Prime Effects) through force of personality, social cues, and the ability to back up his commands with Will when need be. For obvious expansions on this idea, see the Might is Right paradigm and the practices of dominion and the Art of Desire. Symbols: Technically, every instrument on this list is a symbol. As an instrument in its own right, however, a symbol takes a powerful image or omen – a flag, a glyph, a raven, etc. – and then directs a practice and Effect through that vehicle. The mage who unleashes a Mind Effect by unfurling a flag (or burning it) employs a symbol as a tool of his practice. Folks who wear significant symbols – like Captain America or Batman – evoke the power of that sign, adopting its mystique as their own. Mages do this sort of thing all the time; after all, doesn’t a wizard look more impressive in his brocade robes and runecarved staff than he would if he were simply wearing jeans? Thought Forms: Behind every potent symbol, there’s supposedly a level of psychic reality. The belief and life force invested in that symbol – and connecting it to the thing it supposedly represents – grants a level of reality to that symbol and the principles behind it. In modern occultism, that reality is sometimes called an egregore: a “watcher” that attains a sort of sentience because people believe in it. Although various practices disagree about the nature of egregores (are they independent spirit entities, psychic constructs, imaginary concepts, quantum-particle activity principles, or simply human mind games invested with belief?), these thought forms become instruments for various practices, most especially chaos magick, crazy wisdom, shamanism, reality hacking, some forms of High Ritual, the Art of Desire, hypereconomics, and – as certain postmodernist mages would argue – every form of magickal practice, particularly the religious ones. (You could think of an egregore as a meme-god; some occultists, in fact, would argue that both memes and gods are egregores, and that no distinction between the three of them exists. Yes, mages argue about some pretty weird shit.)
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 599 In game terms, a character uses a thought form by constructing a symbol, either in her imagination or in some physical and/ or social form, and then meditating upon it. If she can convince other people to invest psychic energy into the symbol, so much the better – a potent egregore becomes a stronger instrument. By calling upon that symbol as she casts a spell, either through meditation or invocation, she can focus her intentions through it as she would any other sort of instrument. It works because her belief has granted reality to the thought form, creating something from nothing. And so, although the mage appears to be working without an instrument, that instrument is actually something she holds in her head, believing – rightly or otherwise – that it has external reality as well. Beyond the egregores of various mass-media constructions (Mickey Mouse, Team Edward, even Axe body spray), an especially pervasive thought form rules the 21st century: the Corporate Citizen. Employed to devastating effect by the Syndicate, Nephandi, and other corporate-culture mavens (Awakened and otherwise), the Corporate Citizen has become the most powerful political force of our era. Wearing many different masks… one hopes… this thought form channels immense energy for the people who understand how to use it as an instrument. A CNN press pass can focus potent applications of the Mind Sphere; a Koch credit card could channel access to incredible amounts of wealth, and the Axe citizen might indeed facilitate Life-based enchantments. The idea that there could be many different entities spawned from Corporate-Citizen thought forms – each with its own powers and agendas – is too frightening to contemplate… and yet, it might also be the truth. Toys: Magick need not always be serious. Playful items – tops, blocks, dolls, toy soldiers, little cars, games, and so forth – often find their way into the Arts, especially when those Arts are being practiced by Marauders, kids, street mages, Awakened parents, geek-culture mavens, and consistently young-at-heart folks like Willy Wonka or Mr. Magorium. Toys can be creepy too, of course… especially the ones that come to life when you sleep, watch you after midnight, or seem to know a bit more than you’d like them to know about things you’d rather not have ANYONE find out about. Ouija boards, creepy dolls, action figures with working guns… such tools provide hours of fun for mages whose idea of play is rather sinister… Tricks and Illusions: “It’s an ILLOOOOSION!” Mages who’ve learned how to hide their Arts in plain sight can at least try to pass off their Effects as stage trickery. If the magician in question has an arsenal of real-life tricks – ones that don’t actually employ True Magick but sleight-of-hand and misdirection – it’s far easier to then convince the Masses that the flying car or teleportation jump was simply another cool illusion. On a similar note, pranks, gags, pratfalls, traps, con-jobs, and other tricks can be useful tools for the mystic or hypertech Arts as well. A well-executed prank or scam is kind of like magick to begin with; if the grifter just happens to employ real magick to make her tricks more effective, well, then she’s simply very good at the game. Gamblers and survivalists can put Correspondence, Entropy, Life, Mind, and Matter to good use by wrapping such Effects up in tricks and traps. And as for illusions, Mind excels at getting folks to see what they want to see, not necessarily what’s really going on. Certain Social Abilities provide excellent dice pools for this instrument; for details, see the Art, Blatancy, Expression, High Ritual, Seduction, and Subterfuge Talents in Chapter Six. True Names: To name something is to define it; to name someone is to have control over them. For this reason, among others, mages often hide their identities, taking on craft names and adopted monikers that differ from their full birth names. The New World Order, of course, has access to any legal record they care to check… which gives them an edge when they want someone’s True Name. From a technomagickal standpoint, an American’s Social Security Number might work just as well as… or better than… her True Name if the mage wants to hold power over that citizen. In game terms, the Storyteller may rule that an enemy with someone’s True Name – that is, her full legal name, perhaps with childhood nicknames attached – might act against that person as if the enemy has a unique personal instrument (-2 to casting difficulties). That option might be a bit too powerful for comfort; then again, such power could underscore the point that we take privacy too lightly in this era… Vehicles: KITT. Blue Thunder. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and every car ever driven by James Bond. Modern mages know how to get the most out of that cornerstone of our era: the magic vehicle. And though such conveyances tend to be Wonders in their own right, a tinkerer or driver can work his Arts through any properly maintained machine. Enchanted vehicles aren’t always modern machines. Coachmen used to be infamous for their apparent gift for driving coaches between worlds, and High Artisans gained renown for their devastating war machines. Sailing ships, ironclads, old diving bells, skates, even surfboards can provide a focus for transportation magicks. For rules dealing with vehicles, inventions, and repairs, see The Technological World in Chapter Nine. Voice and Vocalizations: Vibrations from the human throat focus astonishing Effects. From singing or recognizable words (see Music and Language, above) to the wordless cries, gibberish, or evocative singing techniques collectively known as glossolalia (“babbling tongue”), vocalizations feature prominently in mystic practices. Both the terms gibberish and jabber come, it has been said, from the 8th-century Arab alchemist Jabir ibn Hazyan, who disguised his forbidden formulas in terms so incomprehensible that would-be translators referred to his work as “Jabir-ish.” In mystic practices, non-linguistic utterances and nonsense phrases often evoke sublime states of mind because they seem significant even though they defy discernable language. The “speaking in tongues” so popular in prophecy and evangelism;
600 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition the channeled speech or singing of mediums and trance-artists; the passionate cries of sex, euphoria, and pain… all of them work as tools of magickal focus. Even primal sounds – snarls, growls, whining, and so forth – can contain mystic influence. And although hypertech practices tend to frown upon indecipherable words, the cyborg who snarls as he aims his chain-gun might not need Spheres in order to get his point across! Wands, Rods, and Staves: Harry Potter’s crew understands the mythic quality of wands and wizard-staves. Acting as extensions of the mage’s arm (and, symbolically, his Will and other parts of his anatomy), these instruments become common yet formidable tools. Best of all, they can be practical in the everyday world as well. Although a wand won’t do much for you beyond directing mystic spells, a rod or staff could serve as a walking stick, prop, or weapon… especially for mages who spend lots of time in the wilderness, where hiking sticks get plenty of use. Weapons: Tools of ill omen tend to find their way into Awakened hands, often becoming channels for Entropy, Forces, Life, and Matter Arts. Any Sphere, of course, could manifest through a weapon: Spirit-crafted bullets to shoot at ghosts; Time-enhanced guns that fire at phenomenal speed; Correspondence arrows that fly impossible distances, WarriorPrincess throwing discs that seem to fly of their own accord; or swords or staves so imposing that only Mind magick could explain their mystique. A canny mage doesn’t even need to enchant their weapon in order to use it as an instrument for Arts; a simple Mind-push tacked onto a witty soliloquy could do the trick. (“Drop. Your. Sword.”) Chapter Nine’s Combat section features extensive rules for weapons and Sphere-enhanced combat techniques. Here, let’s simply say that weapons – from a witch’s athame to a Black Suit’s gun – are among the most popular tools for magickal focus. Even outside combat situations, a sword or dagger holds potent ritual significance. (See also Armor, Devices, and Offerings and Sacrifices.) Writings, Inscriptions, and Runes: Writing is a magickal act. Long before literacy became a common trait, the man or woman who could read and write understood the secret lore of texts and scriptures. Even now, the act of physically writing something down (or carving or engraving it into a surface) gives that magick a sense of permanence. It was for this art that Odin hanged himself on the World Tree, that Chinese calligraphers spent their days in meditative bliss, that monks and friars, scribes and nuns devoted themselves to copying holy words in sacred texts. And even now, a smart blog post or text message can change somebody’s world. True, there’s a huge difference between cutting bloody runes in your flesh, scribing an illuminated scripture, and texting a Twitter observation. Any and all of these methods, though, can focus magickal intentions. Hell, even writing a roleplaying book could be considered an act of Will… Vision Quests Although it’s too involved and self-contained to function as a practical tool, the vision quest forms an important rite of passage within many mystic traditions. Essentially, a mystic pits herself against challenges both internal and external, removing herself from the everyday world and facing extreme deprivation in an effort to reach new insights and triumph over limitations. Almost mandatory for shamans and common among Ecstatics, Thanatoics, witches, neotribalists, and other people beyond the fringe, a vision quest typically involves prayer, fasting, and a retreat from every familiar thing. Most often, the quester goes off into the wilderness with as little food, water, and equipment as she’s willing to dare. Certain cultures favor vision quests without any food or clothing whatsoever – the quester depends upon survival skills, luck, and the kindness of her gods. Danger… up to and including the possibility of death… is an essential feature of the vision quest. If it was easy, then it would mean nothing. Psychoactive entheogens often play a role in the quest; even without them, the mystic might endure hallucinations from hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and exposure. Vision questers tend to pass into the Otherworlds, either mentally or in an extra-physical sense. Spirits both real and delusional arrive to test the mystic. Totems often choose their favored mortals through such ordeals. Failure to pass such tests can mean madness, illness, death, or – if you’re lucky – a nasty detour that forces the quester to call upon her deepest inner strength. If and when a quester returns, she often brings back tokens of her experience: feathers, stones, scars, and so forth. If a spirit has favored that person, then that patron leaves the mystic with a token of its esteem. It’s possible to fail a vision quest, of course… to get lost and require rescuing, to disgrace yourself by cheating, and even – perhaps worst of all – to endure the whole thing and learn nothing from the experience. In game terms, a vision quest could be a solo adventure in which a single character goes off to test herself. The Environmental Hazards systems in Chapter Nine can provide rules for such scenarios, most especially the sections regarding weather, starvation, falls, poisons, and drugs. See also The Otherworlds rules in that same chapter and the Bestiary and Totem Spirits sections of Appendix I.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 601 Part VIII: Adjustments, Procedures, and Rotes The diverse powers of the Awakened are without measure. Despite vast collections of rotes, Procedures, and other such applications of the Arts, each mage is his or her own spellbook, crafting Effects to suit the circumstances of that moment. Even so, every Awakened and Enlightened group has special tricks and rituals that its members use when necessary. The following section presents a very brief look at the established Effects of the Awakened world. For easy reference, each of the following entries has been listed by the highest Sphere(s) involved in the Effect, then by the next-highest Spheres, and so on. Many of these entries have optional components that can be added on by a mage who knows the proper Spheres. Remember that a character needs to know all of the essential Spheres involved, and must have the dots required in those Spheres, before he can use a listed Effect. Bruce Foster, for example, must have at least two dots in Forces before he can try Hot-Shotting his guns. He doesn’t have to have Mind 2 as well; if he does have it, though, then he could add the Mind-based intimidation factor to his attack. The following Effects and spells display only a small sample of Awakened possibilities. For more extensive acts of magick, see the Common Magickal Feats chart, the sourcebook How Do You DO That? and the many books in the Mage: The Ascension line. Note that older books might have different systems, thanks to the rule changes between editions. When in doubt, use the rules in this edition to determine what an Effect can do. Enlightened Adjustments Subtle acts of Enlightened understanding and manipulation, Adjustments remain coincidental except under the most extreme or skeptical circumstances. Although the Syndicate and New World Order specialize in such workings, other technomancers can employ them too. With minor variations in practice and instruments, a mystic mage can use these Adjustments as well – probably under another, more poetic name, but with the Spheres and systems intact. Black Card/ Little Black Box (•• Correspondence/ •• Forces/ •• Mind) If you’ve watched an action thriller within the last decade or two, then you’ve seen this trick in action: The security expert/ thief/ superspy takes out a little black box or card, hooks it into (or passes it through) some part of the security system, stands back, and lets the lights flash and the numbers blur by until the digital locks open and the system lets her in. Real-life systems don’t work that way, of course, but a little technomagick can. System: Game-wise, the little black box trick allows a mage with Correspondence 2, Forces 2 and Mind 2 to attempt to hack controls she couldn’t possibly reach, so long as those controls are networked into the place where the she’s using the box or card. The mage still needs to successfully hack the system and must make the requisite rolls with the requisite skills – see Hacking on the Dramatic Feats chart in Chapter Nine, p. 403. Technically, this sort of thing should be vulgar magick; the black box, however, renders this trick coincidental. After all, the character’s just using advanced technology to crack the system. You see that sort of thing in movies all the time… Hot-Shotting (•• Forces; possibly with •• Mind) Anyone who’s ever watched a movie from the last few decades recognizes the ominous “CHK-CHK” of a cocked shotgun, the click of a pistol’s hammer, the “SHHHING” of a drawn blade, or the clack of a rifle-bolt slapping into place. By modifying her weaponry and then playing upon the psychological effect of media-instilled dread, a Technocratic operative can get her target to stand down, increase the efficiency of her attacks, or project a storm of fire so intense that only the strongest Reality Deviants can stand against it. System: A correctly trained operative – that is, one with the right Spheres – can use a simple Crafts roll to modify her weapon so that it makes more noise and gets a bit of extra kinetic kick. The Forces Sphere enhances both the sonic timbre of the sound and the kinetic damage of its strike. The resulting effects upon the target could be seen as psychological warfare, skillful applications of physics, or both. Each success reduces the difficulty for the agent’s next attack by -1, and adds one automatic success for the Forces Sphere. If she so chooses, the player may apply that bonus to an intimidation-based attack (to get the target to surrender without a fight); to damage (thus hitting the target harder than usual); to targets (allowing her to hit more than one of them with the next attack); or to a mixture of them all. For details, see the Optional Dividing Successes Rule, p. 538. The addition of Mind 2 turns the Hot-Shotting Adjustment into an explicit psychological threat. In this case, the ominous sound is enough to make most targets surrender right away. The player rolls against a difficulty of the target’s Willpower; if her successes equal or exceed the target’s Willpower, then the target gives up without a fight. If not… well, then, that first shot still has a lot more force to back up the agent’s argument. Hands of Death (••• Life, •• Forces, or both; possibly with •• Entropy and/ or •• Prime added) The refined technologies of martial skill allow fragile human beings to defy the apparent laws of physics and biology. Thanks
602 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition to the indisputable gifts of such accomplishment, a man or woman can punch holes in walls, shatter planks or stones, and cripple or kill a foe with one well-executed blow. There’s no magick involved, of course – merely the proven applications of science. And so, although such arts will not allow a person to fly around like some Hong Kong action hero, they do permit a sufficiently trained person to deal out unspeakable amounts of damage with hands and feet alone. Outside the ranks of skilled martial artists, Technocrats (and other mages too) can employ cybernetic enhancements, anatomical knowledge, and sheer attitude in a quest to lay their opponents out in bloody heaps across the floor. And unless the act becomes so outrageous that it defies belief, such attacks remain impressive… yet coincidental. System: An agent’s kicks, punches, and strikes inflict damage as per the Damage or Duration chart, with one automatic success from the Forces Sphere. Most often, this Effect uses martial arts as an instrument and a practice, although other options have been noted above. Forces adds to the kinetic impact of a blow, and Life targets the opponent’s Pattern. A coincidental blow does not inflict aggravated damage, but a truly theatrical (and typically vulgar) blow might. As options, the martial artist might also add Entropy to spot weak points and thus reduce armor, Durability, or soak rolls by one level per success, or add Prime to charge his fists with chi energy and thus inflict aggravated damage. The first option is not vulgar, but the second one is. Right-Click (••• Mind/ ••• Data; often with • Forces, • Life, • Matter, • Prime, •• Dimensional Science, or any combination of the above) The Information Age opens many doors, especially when you know how to knock right. Originally created by either the Virtual Adepts or New World Order (both groups claim the bragging rights), this trick allows a person with access to the correct information – usually through a cybernetic uplink, BCI, or some other interface like the datacrawl described in the Prelude and Appendix II – to pull up pertinent data about people, places, and things. A mental right-click grants access to the source of information, typically through the Internet, a home-based data collection, or Effects, Rotes, or What? In previous editions, Effect referred to single-Sphere spells, and rote referred to spells with more than one Sphere involved. Procedure, Adjustment, and spell all referred to either option. For clarity’s sake, Mage 20 refers to all workings as Effects, uses rote or spell to refer to pre-prepared mystic workings that have a sense of history, and Adjustment and Procedure to refer to Technocratic and technomagickal rotes that have official sanction within the affiliated groups. both. The data appears like a readout in the mage’s mind’s eye, offering surface data about whatever the mage happens to be looking at when he focuses his mental cursor over it and activates the rightclick. That data generally covers only the most basic information, although a truly skilled operator (that is, someone with a high Arete/ Enlightenment Trait and a lot of successes) can uncover surprising amounts of information about the subject in question. System: Mind 3 scans the surface thoughts of sentient subjects, while a connected Mind 1 multitasking Effect lets the mage process the information without distraction. Data 3 – an essential element of this rote! – grants remote access to computerized information; without it, the mage is simply a telepath. Meanwhile, the other optional Spheres allow the mage to trace energies with ultraviolet or infrared scanning abilities (Forces 1); spot the state of health in living things and detect their body heat signatures (Life 1); scan the physical properties of an object (Matter 1); employ X-ray vision on structures or organisms (Life 1/ Matter 1); note flows of Quintessence energy (Prime 1); or employ a combination of the above. Each additional type of vision beyond the first one, however, adds +1 difficulty to the character’s perception rolls, due to the overlapping visual fields. A simple data scan works normally, but adding heat-signature vision, X-ray vision, and infrared visual capabilities to that data scan adds +3 to the viewer’s difficulty as well. For targets who have social media pages, Twitter feeds, and so forth, the mage can read their latest updates, pull up pictures they have posted, et cetera. From a purely psychological perspective, this can provide a devastating edge for a technomancer who wants to play nasty. Someone who checks into Foursquare can be tracked with the Right-Click once the mage has had a chance to right-click on her at least once. Until and unless she stops feeding her location into the global database, the technomancer can access her current location. In order to employ this rote, the character must focus his magick through some data-based technological instrument (cell phone, cybernetic implant, VDAS, etc.) that can access a larger database. Thanks to the definition of this Effect, however, it does not allow the character to scan something that’s not in a computerized database. That’s not because the Spheres can’t see a given phenomenon but because you can’t access information if there’s no information to access. At the Storyteller’s option, a technomancer who has access to a database of extraphysical entities – that is, spirits – can use Spirit 1 to right-click that information too. Certain members of the Order of Hermes have been building Umbrood databases for just this purpose, and the Void Engineers have extensive files on the things their group has encountered. As mentioned below, however, such files might not necessarily be accurate… Unless the right-click interface has been configured to cross dimensions with Dimensional Science 2, this rote cannot be employed from the Otherworlds. This restriction does not apply, however, if the characters are in the Digital Web. Because no one can see it except for the person using the interface, a Right-Click is coincidental. The level of information access is based upon the number of successes rolled:
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 603 Successes Level of Information One Surface data (name, vital statistics) Two Simple data (social-media updates, web posts, common schematics) Three Uncommon data (social-media backlog, web-post archives, phone logs, rare schematics) Four Hidden/ buried data (criminal records, voting info, obscure or protected schematics) Five Classified data (medical records, personal files, protected info from personal computer, classified schematics) Six + If there’s data available, the character can access it. Really large amounts of data might take several turns to scan… perhaps even an hour or more for subjects with overwhelming amounts of information. Note that the information accessed by a right-click might not necessarily be accurate. Even the NWO has flawed data, so the Storyteller should feel free to feed false information to a player who employs this rote. Hypernarrative Influence (•••• Mind; possibly with •• Entropy added) Mass media programs its audience to accept certain messages as intrinsic truths about life. People have become so indoctrinated by the concept of a “hero’s journey” that the Masses often see themselves as players in some vast heroic saga. Other so-called hypernarratives – tropes and stories so familiar that they’ve become part of the cultural lexicon – include the romantic comedy, the sitcom, the slasher movie, the buddy movie, the chick flick, and the wacky-hijinks caper. (Faerie tales appeal to the hypernarratives as well, but Technocrats avoid playing on those tropes if they can help it…) By employing certain phrases (“Let the girl go – I’m the one you want!”), archetypes (Gay Best Friend), or tropes (Enemies Become Allies), a skillful agent can induce another character to follow the script and live out that role. Essentially, the agent calls upon media-instilled social programming and then gives it a push with Enlightened Psychodynamics (the Mind Sphere). Unless the target consciously understands that he’s being fed his lines, he falls into the role and fulfills the hypernarrative’s demands. System: The Mind Sphere influences the target to follow the script. A successful Manipulation + Art or Expression roll triggers the desired behavior. Generally, this Effect lasts for one scene, although the player can extend its effects by spending successes on Duration and then play a particular role (lover, villain, sidekick, etc.) for a while. Thanks to pervasive media culture, this Effect is coincidental unless the target comes from one of the very few cultures that are not familiar with mass-media tropes. But familiarity, as the saying goes, also breeds contempt: a failed or botched roll – or successful resistance from a savvy target – can deflate the hypernarrative because the target has recognized the cliché (“SERIOUSLY?!? Did you really just SAY that?”) and refuses to go along with it. By adding an Entropy element – generally established by invoking the hypernarrative and calculating the odds of probability – the agent can influence events that support the hypernarrative. Guns might run out of ammunition, cars could explode, beautiful strangers or random cats wind up distracting the target, and other pop-media coincidences manifest at just the right time to fulfill the hypernarrative. In this case, a successful Enlightenment roll tilts the probabilities of coincidence (see the Axis of Coincidence sidebar, pp. 533-534) in favor of a media-inspired event. The agent cannot control that event – that’s the Storyteller’s job; still, things will favor an appropriately dramatic (or comedic) twist of fate… not that Technocrats believe in such things! For a staggering selection of hypernarrative devices, check out the TV Tropes Wiki at http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki. php/Main/HomePage. Technocratic Procedures Sometimes, you need to haul out the Big Guns. And so, although the following Procedures are refined and standardized techniques among the Technocratic Union’s ranks, they lack the pristine subtlety of Adjustments and may risk the Paradox Effect under many circumstances. Even when she chooses to be vulgar, though, a Technocrat still needs to use practices and instruments in order to make such things come to pass. As noted elsewhere, a Technocrat believes so strongly in the principles behind her Procedures that she cannot perform them without the proper tools and techniques. A Progenitor (to use an example out of a very old Mage chronicle) cannot simply wave her hyper-scalpel and cut someone who’s several yards away; she MUST have a valid scientific reason for the things she can do. Unlike those mystic Reality Deviants, she doesn’t make the Consensus dance to her whims but rather employs advanced principles of technology to make things work her Will. Sanitize Evidence (•• Matter/ •• Forces, and/ or •••• Prime) When it’s time to clean up a mess – bloodstains, bodies, bullet holes, and other evidence of regrettable havoc – a Technocratic Sanitization Squad comes in with special devices and supplies. Within a short time, the Sanitization Squad reconstructs the damage, destroys evidence, and recycles waste products into useful energies (through Forces or Prime), leaving nothing behind to disturb the Masses’ calm. System: Processing a scene of mayhem takes time… and thus, in game terms, it usually requires an extended roll. Each Enlightenment roll made when conducting a Sanitize Evidence operation reflects one hour of uninterrupted work, and each success renders 10 pounds of matter into pure energy. Extreme carnage demands extreme measures. And so, when a large area needs to be sanitized, several trained Technocrats employ this Procedure at once, dividing up the task between them.
604 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Even using impressive machinery, this Procedure is vulgar, so it’s essential to keep the scene clear of innocent bystanders and nosy cops. For that reason, this sort of operation also includes teammates who employ the Secure the Scene Procedure to keep the area clear of prying eyes and note important bits of evidence that need to be catalogued and then purged before the Masses learn too much. Due to the unstable nature of converting matter into energy, a botch with this Procedure immediately invokes the Paradox Effect, usually with a catastrophic explosion or meltdown of the gear. Secure the Scene (•• or ••• Mind/ • Forces/ • Matter; possibly with ••• Forces added) The ugly fallout from Reality Deviant insurgencies (and the necessary containments thereof) requires Procedures that keep the Masses and their mundane law-enforcement agencies in the often-literal dark. And so, when drastic operations or Consensus-shattering events pose a threat to the security of essential illusions, wise Technocracy operatives invoke the Secure Scene Protocols, sealing up the area while scanning for evidence that must, for obvious reasons, be purged. A few hazard signs or strips of police tape activate a Psychodynamics Procedure that warns people away from the area. Usual security measures simply broadcast a subtle Stay away impulse, whereas high-intensity measures keep all but the most determined trespassers at a distance. Meanwhile, the agents on the scene operate scanning gear that detects evidence and damage. Forces 1 and Matter 1 perception Effects pick up traces of blood, gunpowder, and other residue that might not be visible to the naked eye, allowing the agents to record and then eliminate the messy aftermath of those events. System: In order to Secure the Scene, a Technocrat needs to score at least three successes on a coincidental magick roll. Large areas might need five successes or more. As noted above, Mind Sphere Effects discourage trespassers from entering the secured area; the Mind 2 variation suggests avoidance, and the Mind 3 version actively drives people away. In order to enter the scene, a character needs to make a Willpower roll that scores more successes than the operative who established the Effect. The scanning element, meanwhile, reduce by -1 the difficulties for all of the Perception + Alertness rolls the agents make to detect evidence of the recent events. Thanks to those enhanced perceptions, the agent(s) can see into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, might spot fingerprints, and could note hairline cracks and other traces of evidence or damage. Given time, the Technocrats can catalog and then purge that evidence, often with the Sanitize Evidence Procedure described above. Generally, this Procedure does not conceal the area from outside observation – it drives people away, but the space itself remains visible. By bringing in the appropriate cloaking-field projectors, however, the Technocrat(s) can add
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 605 a Forces 3 blackout component that warps light and sound around the secured area, essentially rendering it dark and silent to casual observation. This additional protocol doesn’t project an actual illusion – that’s an entirely different Effect. The blackout field, though, shrouds the location in darkness while baffling sound waves to muffle the acoustics within that space. A sufficiently skilled and equipped operative can set up all three components – the Mind field, the scanners, and the light/ sound baffling effects – in a single burst of activity. The blackout field, however, adds another three successes to the overall total required, which also adds another layer of time and complication to the Effect. It’s also a vulgar Procedure unless it’s activated in near or total darkness. Dimension Bomb (••• Dimensional Science; possibly with ••• Forces/ •• Prime added) Nasty things wait on the other side of the Dimensional Gauntlet. And so, Technocrats who understand the weird physics of Dimensional Science can send surprises into that realm to deal with said nasty things before they can pass through and disrupt our material home. Generally, the Dimension Bomb Procedure involves calibrating a specially designed grenade or other sort of explosive, then phasing it through the Gauntlet to explode harmlessly on the other end. Although this sort of attack has lost favor somewhat since the Dimensional Anomaly occurred (rumors suggest that the Anomaly originated with a large Dimension Bomb that was somewhat more… efficient than expected), it’s still a useful tactic when dimension-hopping were-things start popping into or out of Consensus space. System: With a successful roll, the operative can push a small explosive device through a hole in the Gauntlet and phase-shift it into the weird matter of the Otherworlds. Once there, it has the usual effects for such a device. Failed rolls or botches, however, have a nasty tendency to hold the object between worlds, inflicting the damage on both sides of the Gauntlet. The Forces 3/ Prime 2 variation uses the bomb as a focus for a Forces-based explosion. Higher Ranks of Forces can be used for larger explosions. Each success that isn’t spent getting the bomb through the Gauntlet acts as Forces-based damage, described on the Base Damage or Duration chart. (If it takes three successes to get through the Gauntlet, for instance, and the player rolls six successes, then the bomb inflicts six health levels of damage.) In either case, the roll’s difficulty is the Gauntlet rating, which makes this Procedure far more effective in low-Gauntlet areas than in high-Gauntlet ones. All versions of this Procedure are vulgar, and Paradox damage typically involves blowback damage from the blast. For details about Explosions, see the section of that name in Chapter Nine. Golden Gunman (••• Time/ •• Forces) The joys of high-octane action movies can be yours with the proper expertise! Pulling out two impressive handguns (or, in hand-to-hand variations, two blades, clubs, or other flashy weapons), a skilled operative can commit stylish acts of mayhem. System: Time allows the operative to take multiple actions with both hands while avoiding the penalties described in Chapter Nine’s Combat section. Each attack gets rolled normally, and the operative may target several different attacks at several different enemies. The Forces Sphere, meanwhile, allows the operative to flip through the air, make amazing leaps, and blaze away with several guns while somehow negating the recoil of such heavy firepower. Best of all – thanks to the popularity of such cinematic stunts – this physics-defying Procedure tends to be coincidental. That said, a botched roll or Paradox backlash leads to spectacular mishaps and tragedies worthy of John Woo’s most melodramatic excesses. (Where the hell did all those doves COME from, anyway…?) Optional Rule: Social Conditioning and Reprogramming Certain forms of influence aren’t subtle. The Technocratic Union’s sophisticated practice of Social Conditioning (referred to in Chapter Five) adjusts people for the greater levels of reality employed by the Technocracy. In its most delicate forms, this Conditioning allows an unEnlightened person to accept, and occasionally employ, the advanced technologies used by the Union. Stronger levels of Conditioning reinforce the loyalty of errant operatives or convince Reality Deviants to accept the Technocratic truth. At their ultimate extent, those processes reprogram the subject’s personality, replacing free will with obedience. Despite common misconception, the Union doesn’t use this drastic measure often. If nothing else, it’s resource-intensive, and it often leaves the recipient more or less useless for anything other than manual labor and low-priority tasks. Because Conditioning restricts a character’s free will, Social Conditioning remains an optional rule when it’s used against a player character. If the player chooses to go along with Social Conditioning, then the Storyteller can pass notes to her and give her subtle hints about what her character should be doing as a result of her programming. For extra levels of treachery, the character may be Conditioned offstage, in a process that only the player and Storyteller know about. That way, the character could begin to subvert her group, based on the implanted Conditioning. Social Conditioning implies an organized, refined, and resource-intensive program of reeducation. No individual mage or independent cabal can use these rules – they must rely upon the usual influence-based methods. Although the Technocracy employs the most effective forms of Social Conditioning, the Nephandi and other groups occasionally use similar processes on captives and converts, with the differences noted below. If the Nephandi in question also happen to be Technocratic PsychOps, however, then that captured character – and all of her associates – could be in very serious trouble.
606 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Conditioning Levels Social Conditioning follows 10 stages, each one more intrusive than the last: • Stage One - Indoctrination: The character becomes a willing convert. • Stage Two - Submission: That convert allows minor magickal Effects to be used on her, without resistance. • Stage Three - Suspicion: Following the dictates of her masters, the character regards people as allies or enemies. • Stage Four - Ostracism: If the masters declare someone anathema, the convert will shun that person. • Stage Five - Pacifism: The masters instill a code word that can immediately make the convert cease all violent activities. • Stage Six - Conspiracy: The masters can implant a code word that initiates covert activity against someone who’s been chosen as an enemy. • Stage Seven - Alliance: The Conditioned character trusts the masters implicitly; their allies become her friends, and their enemies become anathema. A Sleeper at this level is no longer a witness against vulgar technomagick used by the masters, and a mage becomes a total convert to the masters’ paradigm. • Stage Eight - Rejection: If so ordered, the character will forget anyone she has been told to forget; those people literally disappear from her memory, at least for a while. • Stage Nine - Devotion: The convert will betray anyone or anything for the sake of her masters. • Stage Ten - Reverence: “He had learned to love big Brother.” For Socially-Conditioned characters, the player ought to keep a record of her character’s current level of indoctrination. If she chooses to fight it later, see Breaking Conditioning, below. Conditioning Systems Story-wise, Social Conditioning involves isolation from outside contact, followed by intensive psychological indoctrination. A willing Sleeper or eager technomancer might simply receive a subtle but pervasive orientation program that introduces him to the wonders of the Union and its hypertechnology. Unwilling Sleepers, Reality Deviants, and agents who appear to have broken their initial Conditioning all receive a drastic program: PsychOps place such people into complete isolation within a heavily controlled environment, then begin performing elaborate psychological treatment, invasive Mind Procedures, and perhaps worse. (See the Chapter Five entry regarding Room 101.) • Teaming Up: In most cases, Social Conditioning is a group effort. For details, see Acting in Concert, p. 542. • Sleeper Cults: A dedicated group of unEnlightened Sleepers could also try to instill a weaker version of Social Conditioning. In this case, the dice pool comes from the cult leader’s Charisma + an appropriate Ability (Belief Systems, Esoterica, Expression, Politics, Seduction, etc.), and the difficulty for the roll is the target’s Willpower + 5. Other rolls, however, can lower the initial difficulty – see Enhanced Conditioning, below. If that first attempt fails, however, then the dice pool for subsequent attempts at Conditioning may come only from additional enhanced conditioning attempts… and those put the cult at risk for kidnapping charges, and possibly worse. • Initial Processing: System-wise, Social Conditioning involves a Mind 3/ Prime 2 Effect. The agent(s) behind the Conditioning use their Enlightenment (Arete) against a difficulty of target’s Willpower + 3. Each success eliminates one point of the subject’s temporary Willpower. If the roll fails, then the Processing may continue, but at +1 difficulty for each subsequent attempt. A botch foils the Processing forever. Once the subject’s Willpower has been temporarily eliminated, he reaches the first level of Conditioning. For a willing character, that’s the end of the story. Initial Processing wins him over to the cause. If he’s not willing, however, or if the PsychOps want to instill major Conditioning, then the process continues… • Reinforcing the Programming: From there, the Conditioning agents continue the program, often with Mind 4 instead of Mind 3. For Technocratic PsychOps, each roll reflects one day of that process. For nonTechnocrat Nephandi, each roll reflects two days; for other groups, each roll reflects a week. Each level of Conditioning beyond the first requires one success on an extended and resisted roll, difficulty 6; the PsychOps agents continue to use their Enlightenment, and the player under Conditioning rolls his permanent Willpower. The contest reflects the struggle between the target’s subconscious will and the PsychOps’ skill at breaking through such obstacles. • Enhanced Conditioning: PsychOps excel at both the carrot and the stick. To reflect the various methods of encouragement, the PsychOps can use mundane Attribute + Ability rolls to lower the difficulty of that extended roll. Social graces could involve persuasion, seduction, eloquence, and other soft techniques, and brutal methods could involve intimidation, beatings, sensory deprivation, and other forms of torture.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 607 • “Resistance is Futile!”: The subject can also try to resist the Conditioning; for details, see the entries for Resisting and Torture in Chapter Nine’s Dramatic Feats section. If the player succeeds, he manages to fight off the programming for the period covered by that roll; if he botches, he breaks. (See Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, p. 407.) If any of the PsychOps botch a Conditioning roll, the subject cannot be Conditioned… only eliminated. Breaking Conditioning Social Conditioning doesn’t have to become permanent. Certain Technocratic groups – notably the Friends of Courage, the Harbingers of Avalon, Project Invictus, and many Void Engineer groups – specialize in breaking such Conditioning. • Individual Resistance: If the character strives to break free, the player can spend a point of Willpower, then either roll her current Willpower (difficulty is the level of Conditioning) or perform a successful Mind 3 Effect upon herself. Each success eliminates one level of Conditioning for that scene; five successes or more breaks it for good. • Reconditioning: Another group that understands Social Conditioning techniques can overwrite the previous Conditioning with their own. Again, each success replaces one level of Conditioning with that group’s own Conditioning. If, for example, the Friends of Courage overwrite a Black Suit’s programming, that Black Suit becomes equally loyal to the Friends of Courage. That’s a good thing if the group behind the reconditioning process happens to be the Friends of Courage… and a really bad thing if it happens to be a Nephandic infiltration sect! Mystic Spells and Traditional Rotes In the more traditional applications of the Arts, magick remains unashamed of its reality-bending nature. A mystic practitioner doesn’t have to stage mind games with himself in order to justify what he does – he simply does it. Still, there’s a lot to be learned from those who have done such things before. And so, the various Awakened factions share spells, rotes, and rituals that help a mage accomplish various feats, from growing talons to saving data that appeared to be lost. Unlike Technocratic Adjustments and Procedures, the following rotes appear to be exactly what they are: acts of magick. Although certain spells are more subtle than others, they tend to be vulgar magick in most regions of the modern world, unless they’re focused through technology or concealed within apparently mundane activities. Still, the mages who employ them remain proud of such legacies. After all, if you’re gonna be a mage, then you might as well indulge yourself and enjoy the magic! The Bullet-Catch (•• Forces/ •• Life/ •• Time) For masters of the martial arts, the ability to catch an arrow, knife, or spear in flight provides a legendary measure of practical skill. No one can catch bullets that way, though… or can they? The Akashic Tradition, of course, refined such techniques back when the Five Metal Dragons brought their hated firearms to the battlefields of China. And although the velocity and stopping power of such weapons has increased geometrically since those early innovations, anything is possible with a sufficient understanding of the Way. System: By adding a Forces 2/ Life 2/ Time 2 Effect to the Arrow Cutting feat (see Chapter Nine, p. 428), a Tao-shih can indeed catch bullets. Forces slows the bullet’s kinetic energy, Life hardens the skin against the projectile, and Time quickens the character’s reflexes to incredible speed. To perform such feats, an Akashic mage who’s aware of the attack can cast the Effect, focus it through Do, and then roll his Dexterity + Do as if it were a dodge against the gunfire. If he scores more successes than his attacker, he catches the bullets before they can hit him. Whether or not this stunt is vulgar magick depends on where the martial artist is at the time. Although it would be vulgar in most places, it might be considered coincidental in regions that accept a superhuman martial-arts paradigm. Awaken the Inanimate (••• Spirit) Our world is innately alive. This animistic viewpoint – an intrinsic part of shamanic practices – asserts that every object, place, or being has a spiritual element within itself. Most sprits slumber peacefully, dimly aware of their surroundings but more or less inert. An animist, however, can wake them up, granting fresh vitality to supposedly inanimate things. As mentioned in the Chapter Nine sections about Awakening Substances see (p. 443), an awakened object works better than a normal, sleeping one. An awakened computer works faster and more efficiently; an awakened glass makes its drinks taste sweeter; an awakened car might literally go that extra mile if you treat it well, and so an animist knows how to get a little extra edge out of essentially material things. Obviously, a mage wants to get on that spirit’s good side. To do so, she talks to it, chants while holding it, polishes it or tinkers with it or does whatever else the object in question might need in order to feel recognized. Maybe she reads her favorite book by candlelight to awaken the spirit within its pages, or she might clean a mirror while asking respectful questions about what it sees. In time, a favored object learns to recognize the mage and begins giving her small favors in return. A happy dagger might never cut its owner; a favorite sweater might look good and feel right and never snag or tear. Although most of these favors remain small and coincidental, a powerful shaman can rouse the spirits to perform clearly impossible acts: offering advice, running without fuel, locking
608 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition out trespassers who try to break into an awakened house, and other sorts of paranormal phenomena. Awakened objects also have presence within the spiritual realm. An awakened knife, for example, can slice ephemera and accompany its mage into the Otherworlds. An awakened house retains its material substance on the other side of the Gauntlet, and it might even have a lower Gauntlet than the area around that house. (Storyteller’s option, unless the mage uses Spirit 4 to lower the Gauntlet herself.) A favored toy might glow in the Umbra… or perhaps even speak to the mage. In all cases, the awakened object or area has a stronger Resonance than an object or area that remains asleep. System: Rousing an object typically requires an extended ritual – five successes or so for small objects, 20 or more for large areas or complicated machines. In most cases, the mage invests that object or place with her own Resonance, literally giving the spirit a part of herself. Typically, this spell remains coincidental. If the mage tries to rouse that spirit to do obviously uncanny things, however, then the Storyteller may decide that she’s invoking vulgar magick instead. As noted above, an awakened object exists in the Umbra as well as in the physical world and can be taken along with the mage if and when she travels into the Otherworlds. Chain of Whispers (••• Mind/ •• Correspondence) A few words in the right ears (or the wrong ones) can change a person’s world. Hailing from the courtly intrigues of Renaissance Europe, this enchantment turns a simple rumor into a force of social destruction. To begin the spell, the mage tells something (true or otherwise) to a “trusted friend.” Whatever that secret might be, its nature is innately scandalous. Although the spell caster begs her friend not to let that information slip, the spell actually compels the friend to pass the secret on to someone else… who tells someone else… who tells someone else… and so on, and so on, and so on… System: Playing off the perverse urge to do forbidden things, this Chain of Whispers wraps the desired message in a magickal compulsion to share that secret freely. Mind implants the compulsion to spread the word, and Correspondence pulls the information from person to person; once that secret has been told, the urge to pass it on goes to the next person in the chain. Each success rolled compels two people to share the information… but after that, the natural human tendency to gossip keeps the secret in circulation long after the spell itself has faded. In its original form, the Chain of Whispers required human speech and personal contact; these days, though, a phone call, text message, or Internet post can pass the word along. Mass media spreads gossip around as well, but the forbidden nature of the spell loses its potency when too many people get the message quickly. Unless the secret is clearly ridiculous and easily disproved, this spell remains coincidental. A character can resist the urge to pass it on (a simple Willpower roll would be sufficient), but because so many people love great dirt, most folks won’t even bother trying to keep their mouths shut. Penny Dreadful’s Bright New Penny (••• or •••• Matter/ •• Prime/ •• Time) Crafted by the notorious Penny Dreadful, this spell restores old rubbish to its original, pristine state. By recalling bits of trash as the useful things they had once been, the mage returns the old items to their original splendor. In its earliest versions, this “bright new penny” trick used an antique tablecloth to conjure food and vintage place settings from the memories of meals that had previously been served upon that tablecloth. As impressive as it was, however, this application proved to be a magnet for Paradox. Later on, Penny created a more coincidental version of the spell that helped her find perfectly preserved antiques in the strangest of places. Since then, it has become a fixture of Hollowers’ enchantment and street-orphans’ survival tactics. System: Using Time and Matter, the mage looks backward to the item’s original form. Prime energy fuels the new Pattern, and Matter 3 restores the object to its pristine condition. Matter 4 recreates it from scratch. Simple, battered items are easy to repair, but elaborate restorations or fresh conjurations require three successes or more. As noted earlier, this spell can be either vulgar or coincidental, depending upon how the mage decides to reveal its effects. For suggestions about the line between “Wow – where’d THAT come from?” and “Seriously – where DID that come from?” check out Axis of Coincidence, pp. 533-534. Psychic Interface (••• or •••• Mind/ •• Data/ •• Forces; possibly with •• Spirit instead of Data) A specialty of certain Virtual Adepts, Black Suits, cyber-shamans, tech-savvy Hermetics, and the mysterious Mirainohmen, the discipline of psychic interface allows a reality hacker to manipulate computer-based information with his mind alone. Entering a light trance, he focuses on his vision of the data stream or reality code (essentially tapping into the Matrix through psychic contact or brain/ computer interface) and begins to work with the code. By successfully doing so, he can access and alter information, control IT-based systems, surge or short out the electrical impulses of a computer-based network, and possibly – if his psychic bond comes by way of computer spirits – commune with entities composed of raw information. System: Practically speaking, the psychic interface lets computer-savvy mages access computers without actually using their hardware. Focus-wise, a mage with this discipline (strictly speaking, it’s not a rote) can add meditation to his selection of instruments and then use it in place of computers and IT gear. Most Technocrats still employ tech-based instruments (implants, Glass-tech, or similar contraptions) in order to focus her psychic interface, although practitioners of the cybernetics practice can simply commune with The Machine. Tech-smart
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 609 mystics can meditate their way into the Computer Mind as well, whereas technoshamans bargain with the spirits, employ IT-based rituals, access a specifically dedicated computer system (in game terms, a unique and personalized instrument) from a distance, or otherwise use Spirit Sphere magick instead of the Mind Sphere. The Data Sphere is essential for this kind of interface; mere Correspondence lacks the essential ties to the essence of computerized reality. The Mind Sphere, meanwhile, projects the mage’s consciousness into the Computer Mind. The Forces Sphere allows that character to manipulate electrical systems from a distance, and the higher-level Mind 4 variant lets him project himself into the Digital Web without using hardware to do so. In order to employ this discipline, a character must have at least four dots in Computers, a specialty in Psychic Interface, and at least three dots in Meditation. Whether such access is coincidental or vulgar depends upon what the mage does with it. Simply linking yourself into a computer system from a distance so you can scan or hack its information is essentially invisible, and is thus coincidental. Staring at a computer from across a room and making it print up documents or explode would be vulgar anywhere outside of a dedicated Technocratic facility or other computer-mage stronghold, although obviously body-based interface technology (like a smart phone or Google Glass) would probably pass for coincidence in a tech-savvy region. Downloading yourself into the Digital Web is vulgar to begin with, and communing with tech-spirits would look, if nothing else, really fucking weird. Talons (••• or •••• Life; possibly with •• Matter, •• Prime, or both added) Humans are such soft and fragile things, lacking the claws that distinguish other predators. Thanks to magick, however – or to cybernetic technomagick, anyway – a mage can grow claws (or, with Life 4, install them on another character) that make up for that silly lapse in “intelligent design.” In its simplest and most traditional form, this spell extends the bones within the subject’s fingers, and perhaps his toes as well. Strengthening them into practical talons, the mage charges them with personal Quintessence, granting those claws a paranormal sharpness. Other applications graft steel, bone, or other substances into the subject’s limbs. Cyborgs, shapechangers, war wizards, and other combative types make deadly use of such appendages, and although the spell’s roots are rather primordial, its effects never go out of style. System: Life 3 grows the claws on the mage’s own hands, and Life 4 allows him to grow them on – or attach them to – another character. Matter 2 allows the claw-crafter to work other substances into those Talons… an essential element for cybernetic enhancement. Prime toughens and charges the claws, often with a glowing nimbus of Quintessential power
610 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition if the mage wants to show off his handiwork. Normally, the claws inflict lethal damage; the Prime 2 component makes this damage aggravated instead. In all cases, this rote allows the character to use the Claw maneuver described in Chapter Nine’s Combat section. Witch’s Vengeance (•••• Entropy, ••• Life/ ••• Time, or all three; usually with Correspondence or Data added) The fearsome powers of a furious witch manifest in this ancient war-spell. Crafting an elaborate poppet, painting, or other image of her victim, the spell caster mutters maledictions at that person, establishes a bond between the image and the real-life target, and then tears into the image, burns it, melts it, or does some other horrible thing to that stand-in for her victim. Meanwhile, the victim suffers crippling pains, catches fire, withers into a skeletal mass, watches as his skin peels off in strips, or otherwise endures a theatrically awful fate. Despite its witchy name, this spell has many cultural variations: the curses of angry shamans, furious clergy, mystic assassins, Romani elders, techno-punks, bitter artists, and other folks who have a literal bone to pick with their victims. A frightening Data-based variant, Ticktock Man, allows a distant technomancer to age his victim from a distance. So long as he holds a bit of that target’s personal information and has the requisite amount of dots in Data (Correspondence), the mage can input a number of years into his Trinary computer, get a fix on his target, and then use Life and Time to age his target from a distance. System: Different Spheres inflict different sorts of harm. Entropy corrupts the victim with age or leprosy, Life demolishes the victim’s body in any number of horrifying ways, and Time (combined with Life) lets the attacker age her target according to the Feats of Time Magick chart. Unless the mage employs the Correspondence Sphere (and has at least one dot for every dot in the damage-causing Sphere), she must touch the victim in order to set the curse in motion. All of these attacks, of course, are incredibly vulgar, but they can be alarming for really obvious reasons. The Notorious Vampiric Lawn Chair (••••• Life/ ••••• Matter) A feat more spoken of than actually performed (if only because so few mages have Mastered Life and Matter well enough to enact such radical transformations of both), this legendary spell transforms a dreaded undead entity into domestic furniture. Variations include soap bubbles, trees, household pets, and – in one infamous urban legend – a bag of flaming poo. Despite such rumors, though, the realities involved in this sort of metamorphosis make the idea more theoretical than practical. According to rumors, both Caeron Mustai and his arch-rival Porthos Fitz-Empress had several pieces of Kindred kindling in their studies, although this seems unlikely, given the risk of said furniture turning back into vampires at inopportune times. Certain vampires have claimed – rightly or wrongly – that mages turned them into chairs and other inanimate objects… typically using that claim to justify the nightmarish fates they inflicted upon those mages afterward. It was speculated that the Massasa Wars were sparked by such disgraceful transformations… and in at least one verified case, that speculation is true. The vengeance worked upon the Hermetic Master in question – who dared to turn a fleshcrafting Tzimisce into a commode – remains an object lesson for mages with more skill than sense. System: Seriously, this is a truly stupid spell. No mage with the Sphere aptitude and Arete to perform it is likely to ignore the many complications involved in such a prank – to wit: • It’s vulgar. Really vulgar. As in, there is no way to possibly justify this by paradigm-level vulgar. Paradox is inevitable. • It’s got to overcome the innate resistance a vampire has to such spells. (See Night-Folk Counterspelling, p. 546.) • It must inflict enough successes, after countermagick, to bring that vampire from full strength to Incapacitated. For a young vampire, that would demand at least four successes (eight health levels); the same feat might demand five, six, or even more successes if the mage is trying to convert an elder Kindred. • If you’re using the divided successes option, then the player must devote at least that many successes to the transformation damage. That means that a four-success roll will change the vampire into a lawn chair for one turn. After that, the lawn chair becomes a vampire again – and the mage had better have a good escape spell handy at that point, or his name becomes “blood bag.” • In order to effect a lasting transformation, the player must either spend or roll additional successes, as shown on the Base Damage or Duration chart. Turning a young vampire into a chair for one day, for instance, would require at least seven successes. • Tuning an undead vampire into some other form of inert material demands Matter 5. “Vampire” is not listed on the Periodic Table of Elements, so transforming that substance into different forms of matter requires full Mastery of that Sphere. • Vampires with the Protean and Vicissitude Disciplines can transform back to their original form with very little trouble. The vampire must spend one Blood Point for each success the mage rolled. Every point negates one success on the Arete roll, and the vampire changes back when those successes are all negated. • The transformed vampire is still a vampire, and that vampire remains conscious. Said vampire may use any Discipline that doesn’t require moving her limbs. If the
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 611 bloodsucker has minions within summoning distance, things might go rather poorly for the mage. • A Kindred on the receiving end of this spell – whether or not the spell succeeds – must make a Frenzy roll at difficulty 8 (outright humiliation, plus dire peril). For players unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade, this means that the vampire will flip her shit unless she makes a successful roll, and anyone within reach will become wallpaper in very short order. • A vampire who gets turned into wooden furniture may be set on fire, for the usual amount of damage. If the spell lasts long enough, that vampire might be left out in the sun, again taking the usual amount of damage each turn. That burning Kindred automatically goes into frenzy and may immediately change back into her normal form by expending her entire blood pool, assuming that she has enough blood left to do so. If not, she burns. • Vampires hold immortal grudges. Any mage who transforms a Kindred into furniture will be blood-hunted by that vampire, her allies, and probably other vampires as well. (A blood-hunt, for non-Vampire players, is essentially a zero-mercy undead APB.) After all, examples must be made, lest other mages get the wrong idea. • When, not if, those hunters find the mage, their revenge will be as gorily theatrical as possible… and when it comes to gory theatrics, it’s hard to beat an angry vampire! Any mage dumb enough to brag about doing this sort of thing (whether he can actually do it or not) deserves his impending sadistic demise. Part IX: Reality Zones Clearly, people do believe in magic. Oh, the party line about technology ruling the world is popular enough. And there is truth to it. But people still believe in magic. Maybe they call it “miracles,” or “god,” or simply read about it in the pages of this month’s best-seller or their favorite website… but they DO believe. And so, the Technocracy isn’t the only group that holds sway over the Consensus of mortal faith. As it says in Mage 2nd Edition, magick is never “just part of the landscape.” Although it might seem more rigid at certain times and places than at others, one fact every mage understands is that reality is never fixed into a certain form. Although the mystics of the early Revised Edition era felt a profound crisis of faith and feared that magick is dead, the truth of Awakening allows every mage to rework reality to a certain degree. The boundaries of coincidence show just how much flexibility a given region of reality can bear. And within certain reality zones, some types of magick are more coincidental than others. Options for Reality Like many other elements of Mage 20th Anniversary Edition, the reality-zones concept is optional: • Your group could use it to determine the sorts of Effects and practices that are coincidental or vulgar; • You might simply ignore it and assume that the entire world operates under Technocratic Reality; • …or you could deepen the game and allow your players to change their world by creating paradigm shifts that, in turn, alter capital-R Reality and literally change the rules in their favor. The choice between those options, ultimately, is yours. Reality Zones Within the Game Simply put, magickal Effects that fit a place or culture work better than ones that go against its grain. If Jodi Blake wants to incite mass murder, for example, she’ll have an easier time doing that at a protest rally than at a Buddhist temple. In game terms, a reality zone affects a mage in one of two different ways: • Acceptance: Effects and practices that fit in with a reality zone are usually coincidental and might – at the Storyteller’s option – lower the difficulty by -1 if the Effect or practice suits the tone of that area. (See Appropriate Resonance on the Magickal Difficulty Modifiers chart.) • Rejection: Effects and practices that clash with a reality zone tend to be vulgar and might add +1 to their difficulty if they go against the local atmosphere. (See Opposed Resonance on that same chart.) What does that mean? Simple: if your beliefs and actions suit a reality zone, that zone accepts your magick; if you go against the grain, the local reality rejects you. In short, it’s easier to work with Reality than to go against the flow. And if you want to change things, then that task is easier if you work with what you have than it is to force your Will down Reality’s throat. Working in the Zone From a game and story standpoint, reality zones encourage players and their characters to be clever and resourceful – to
612 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Example: Jodi’s Riot Working within a reality zone involves imagination, observation, and strategy. In game terms, it’s an excellent opportunity to put Traits like Academics, Belief Systems, Esoterica, Media, or Politics to good use. For an example, let’s take Jodi’s would-be riot. If the Nephandus comes flying in on a demon, eating babies and throwing blood on the crowd, she’s being ridiculously vulgar. Reality will smack her first, and the Sleepers will probably stomp her afterward. Nowhere on Earth is that kind of shit okay. So let’s say she’s in a Technocratic Reality zone. Picking her tactics carefully, Jodi ingratiates herself with several influential people, seduces them with subtle Mind Effects, and then grabs a bullhorn and begins to work the crowd. Choosing a particularly angry pack of protesters, she shouts slogans that match their frustrations. Because dominion is Jodi’s favored practice, she uses some tools of that practice (eye contact, group rites, social domination, voice) to focus some largescale – yet still subtle – Life and Mind Effects that push everyone over the edge. A few minutes later, violence explodes and Jodi’s work is done. No one has seen her perform a single act of magick, and the resulting violence is absolutely coincidental. In a Localized Reality zone, she’d choose tactics that suit the beliefs of folks nearby. Say she’s in a Buddhist temple, a zone of harmonic energies and social stability, based around beliefs of disconnection and personal discipline. Starting a riot here will be more difficult… so instead of tossing around blood and fury, she begins playing upon the insecurities, fears, and repressions within the temple community. A little Life-Mind sexual temptation, a few distracting thoughts placed in various people’s heads, maybe a touch of Matter when no one is looking, to warp the temple’s bell chimes into discordant, irritating sounds. And then, she plants the scapegoat: a would-be lover, a bumbling initiate, the person who doesn’t fit in, or the local folks who live outside the temple. Maybe she steals something or kills someone, pointing evidence toward the scapegoat. A few Mind-pushes here and there, and soon the harmonious monks are shedding blood. Again, the Nephandus triumphs without ever showing her hand. In a Primal Reality zone, Jodi sets herself up as an old-fashioned sorceress. Conducting her usual seductions through sex-and-blood rituals, she ingratiates herself into a local community. The Old Gods must be placated, so Jodi blends her maleficia practice with the same sort of domination she used in the other examples. Now, though, she invokes those Old Gods, offers traditional sacrifices, and shows her worthiness by pitting herself against the elements through ordeals and vision questing. Perhaps with the help of malignant spirits, or simply through the usual seductions, she manages to turn the community against itself. Once again, though, her Arts and tactics follow the set of reality. Instead of shouting through a bullhorn or warping temple bells, she’s sacrificing doves and watering the soil with blood. One mage, one goal, three approaches. All of them can either work or fail, depending upon how they’re done. work within the zone rather than to fight the program and probably lose. The sections below offer four essential reality zones: • Earthly Foundations: Certain laws of Earth’s reality physics are more or less fixed. You can go against them, but no matter who you are or what you do, those efforts will almost certainly count as vulgar magick. • Technocratic Reality: Here, the laws of scientific technology dictate what is and is not acceptable within the zone. • Localized Reality: In certain flexible areas, reality depends more upon specific local beliefs than on a rigid set of rules. • Primal Reality: Technology holds little influence in Primal Reality places. The laws of mystic Old Ways still dominate what is and is not possible. In game terms, a given zone either accepts or rejects a mage’s activities. The more she can play within the rules of a zone, the more successful she will be. Earthly Foundations Some things are almost always vulgar, no matter who’s doing them, where they’re doing them, or how they’re being done. In game terms, acts that violate these Earthly Foundations contradict the baseline reality for Earth. • Sudden Large Alterations of Physical and Metaphysical Mass or Space: Stacking places on top of one another, disintegrating large structures, changing large masses of physical matter into large emissions of energy (i.e., explosions), radical transformations of one physical form into another (that is, people into stone or vampires into lawn chairs)… such things disrupt Reality on a fundamental level. Even when performed by technology, such large-scale alterations are never truly safe. The horrific consequences of nuclear detonation could be seen as manifestations of the Paradox Effect; so could environmental pollution, climate change, organ rejection, electromagnetic pulses, cancer, and other aftershocks of technological disruption. The bigger the Effect, the larger the consequences… and no matter who you are or how you work your magicks, no mage acts without consequences.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 613 • Obvious violations of normal physical laws: Water running uphill, people flying around, free-floating molecules abruptly manifesting as solid mass, turtles suddenly moving at cheetah speed… such gross alterations of Earth’s primary physical laws tend to incur Paradox. Certain long-term projects – like airplanes, flying ointments, and martial arts – might be able to bend those principles a bit, but the act of investing that much time, energy, and devotion to a task still recognizes that those principles exist. Simply ignoring them – say, by jumping off a roof while believing you can fly – is a good way to get your ass kicked, either by Paradox (if you do fly) or by physics (if you don’t). • Cross-dimensional rifts: Whether you see the Gauntlet as a spiritual barrier or the membrane between dimensional spaces, it clearly exists for a reason. When folks go through it, Reality responds. The Avatar Storm metaplot could be seen as one huge Paradox backlash – one so vast that every mage alive felt the shock. Even if the Avatar Storm never happened in your chronicle, it’s a slap in the face to Reality at large when a person opens gates between the worlds. • Messing with the time stream: Although perceptions of time are fluid (a fact that allows mages to peer backwards or forwards through time), the actual actions that occur in time cannot be altered easily. Time-trained mages know that such alterations are possible, but those actions are never coincidental unless Reality itself performs them… and even then, there are consequences from that alteration. Technocratic Reality Throughout our world in this 21st century, the Technocratic vision of reality holds the coincidental edge, not simply because of the Union’s indoctrination (although that does have something to do with it) but because science-based technology is rooted in following the laws of Earthly physics. Unlike faith and magic, it’s based upon repeatable, verifiable, consistent results, not mere Enlightened Will, so it tends to work more reliably than mystic magick does. Note that mystics can, and do, use technological tools in their practices. A wizard can use a cell phone, and a shaman can mow his lawn. Although hardcore primitivists reject all but the simplest technologies, most 21st-century mystics accept Technocratic Reality by default. (Whether that’s a result of brainwashing or practicality is a subject for lively debate…) The Industrialized World: Science-based technology has made the world into a better place for most human beings. Central heating, advanced medicine, info tech, toilet paper… the Masses really are better off now than they were during the High Mythic Age. And so, as a result, people have faith in the blessings of technology – not just in the devices and Procedures
614 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition of the Technocracy, but in everyday miracles like cars, soap, and running water. Thanks to those factors – as well as the large-scale paradigm enforcement on the part of the Order of Reason and its various descendants – the majority of the industrialized world accepts miraculous technology as coincidence. A jetpack will get your mage further than a broomstick will, and guns can do what wands cannot. Mystic Effects, then, have distinct disadvantages when it comes to getting away with magick. Scientific and Technological Installations: In places dedicated to technology, that technology reigns supreme. Even the weird science of the Etherites and Adepts dominates coincidence in the labs and workshops devoted to those pursuits. Mystic magick is almost always vulgar in such places, and even the more extreme forms of technomagick could be considered vulgar if they contradicted the purposes of a specific laboratory. A HIT Mark at MIT would attract the wrong sort of attention from the thousands of students and faculty members who realize just how impossible such technologies are in their reality. So when you’re trying to figure out the edge between coincidence and vulgarity near a science lab, ask yourself whose version of science dominates the localized belief. After all, the paradigm difference between Arkham University and UCLA is pretty damned big. Localized Reality Despite the apparent laws of physics, Reality often is fundamentally irrational. Vampires, spirits, gods, and magick did not simply fade away because a few textbooks overruled their existence. Certain things can never be quantified or proven, so large portions of the material world remain in an either/ or state, with malleable reality and greater margins for coincidence. Game-wise, the following contested territories have more flexibility with regards to mystic practices and miracles of faith. Technology, on the other hand, might be considered more vulgar in certain areas; a haunted house, for instance, could throw Paradox at technomagick and accept witchcraft as perfectly normal. Localized realities extend from small areas (a house, a field, an underpass) to communities of several hundred people (a small town) or areas of several dozen miles. Higher populations – or really low ones – tend to lead a localized reality toward either Primal or Technocratic extremes. This localized reality syndrome allows mages to create Sanctums and Chantries, whereas Sleepers spread faiths, build churches, maintain cultural traditions, and use art, education, and technology to change their world in small yet significant ways. Urban Decay: When Entropy settles into the cracks of man’s creativity, the apparent solidity of tech-based reality breaks down. Slums, ruins, abandoned factories, derelict homes, disaster areas, urban warzones, the old parts of town… anyone who spends time in such areas realizes how precarious reality can be. Even the biggest, most modern cities on Earth have places where a shaman, houngan, priest, or witch can still get the Old Ways to work despite the laws of scientific technology. Irrationality Zones: That’s even more true in places where rationality fades: haunted houses, sacred spaces, holy lands, SF conventions, religious revivals, battlegrounds, murder sites… places where the reasonable façade of scientific progress gives way to primal chaos or counter-rationality. In such irrationality zones, mystic Arts and outrageous coincidences have the upper hand over science-based technologies. The Technocracy isn’t blind to this effect… and has, in fact, taken it into account. One of the reasons that flamboyant cyborgs and Men in Black make such effective agents in such places is because those figures hold archetypal powers that go beyond mere science. The Black Suits, in particular, share a symbolic mystique that puts them far outside the bounds of rational technology and into the realm of myth. The apparently supernatural techniques of such agents remain coincidental in certain types of irrationality zones. After all, those agents are essentially walking legends with their own sorts of magick to command. Unlike the Mystic Regions mentioned below, an irrationality zone can be wildly scientific too. A steampunk workshop or robotics lab could seem so counter-rational that it shuts down both magick and conventional scientific principles. On a related note, that irrationality might bring down a curtain of disbelief so thick that the people inside it refuse to accept anything outside their chosen view, even when a rational person would admit the evidence of her senses. (For details, see Types of Quiet: Denial, pp. 557-558.) Borderlands and Crossings: Certain times and places slip between the rational and irrational worlds. Crossroads, holidays, dawn and dusk, the edge of a forest, mirrors, fogs, cliffs or caves, even the threshold of a house – they’re transitions between states of being. For mages who understand them, such places can be avenues for coincidence as well. A witch at midnight on Halloween, for example, can get away with things that Paradox would strike her down for doing in broad daylight on either side of that holiday. A Storyteller may consider certain thresholds in time and space to be more open to coincidence than usual. Rural Areas: The further you get from the big city, the more primal and irrational the world appears to become. Farmlands, frontiers, distant houses, small towns in the middle of nowhere… such places tend to follow the rules of the people who live there. And if those people believe in ghosts or miracles or Babe the Blue Ox, well, then the local reality will probably accommodate that view of the world. The big-city stranger with his cell phone and Internet might just find that those things don’t work ’round here; meanwhile, the faith-healing preacherman really can perform miracles when he acts according to God’s Will. For that reason, among others, mystic mages often move to rural areas where the culture suits their own beliefs. Regions of Faith: The greatest showdown of the 21st century isn’t the battle between magick and technology but the divide between religious faith and material rationalism. In this fight, the boundaries of coincidence and vulgar magick depend less upon whether or not something is “magical” than upon whether or not people accept it within their religious views. People all over this world can, and do, accept fundamentally (and fundamentalist) irrational ideas that contradict pure science.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 615 And so, a mage who shares the dominant culture’s faith has an edge over one who does not. The Digital Web: Although it’s not the wild-west zone it once was, the Digital Web still features a dynamic flux of tech and magick. As the section in Chapter Nine explains, the Web considers certain types of Effects and practices to be perfectly normal, whereas it shuts down other kinds of magick with Whiteouts and other quirks. No one truly owns Web-based reality, though lots of people still like to think they do. In truth, the Web is very much its own universe, with laws and principles that apply only within its expanse. High-Resonance/ Synergy Zones: Certain places have a different “feel” than others. For various reasons, such places have a type of energy about them. Las Vegas has a high-roller atmosphere that encourages risks and excess; Auschwitz holds a misery that every living thing can feel. The Resonance and Synergy sidebar describes various types of Resonance and Synergy that a mage can either use or contradict. As mentioned above, a player who works with that energy will have an easier time than one who goes against it. Realms: Each Realm is a reality unto itself. The physics of one Realm might differ considerably from the principles of other Realms, each Realm following the essence of its specific place. A Chinese Hell, an animistic Nature Realm, the Machine-Haven Autocthonia, and the Umbral Realm of Forces all run by very different rules, and none of them bears much resemblance to Earth’s reality. That’s all especially true of Horizon Realms – places specifically created by mages to suit a particular paradigm. The Hermetic stronghold Doissetep obviously favored Hermetic Arts; the Copernicus Research Center catered almost exclusively to Void Engineer techniques. Within those regions, reality is what its creators make it to be, accepting and rejecting magicks according to those creators’ wishes. Opposing magicks are almost always vulgar, and the appropriate Arts remain coincidental. Realms also tend to reflect a lot of Resonance, echoing the deeds and natures of their primary inhabitants. In addition to the reality-zoning that makes rival forms of magick vulgar, trespassers also find that their magick is more difficult to cast in such places. A Man in Black, for example, would be operating at a disadvantage in a Cult of Ecstasy Horizon Realm like the Balador Pleasure Dome; even if his Mind-based Procedures are essentially coincidental, his Authoritarian Resonance goes against the spirit of that place. As described above, folks who go against the flow suffer penalties, whereas those who go with it reduce the difficulties for their Effects. Primal Reality Some regions never fell to Technocratic domination. In such places, mystic Arts still have the edge, and technomagick tends to be vulgar if it works at all. Primal mages insist that Earth has always been this way, and they might be correct. The shadow realm of legends and dreams certainly favors this primal atmosphere. Mystic Regions: In certain pockets of the 21st-century world, faith holds more sway than science. Within such places, a person whose practices match the local beliefs is usually coincidental as far as Reality is concerned, whereas anyone whose practices clash with – or simply don’t feature into – those beliefs is considered vulgar. Despite common preconceptions, those locations don’t have to be “in the deepest heart of Africa” or other ethnocentric nonsense. Certain segments of small-town Americana, hippie communes, counterculture festivals, even high-tech steampunk groups or transhumanist enclaves could all be considered mystic regions too. It’s mostly a matter of shared culture and belief – a belief so strong that it reshapes Reality in its own image even without Awakened influence. Deep Wilderness: True wilderness is hard to find these days, but scraps of it still exist between the cracks of the 21st century. And as anyone who’s ever taken a deep-woods hike can attest, things just work differently out there. Advanced technology tends to fail in deep-wilderness areas, but the oldest forms of magick thrive. The further a person gets from civilization, the less predictable Reality becomes. Werewolves and other monsters favor such remote locations because the hand of humanity still holds very little power there. Nodes and Wellsprings: Except for Nodes and Wellsprings that have been dedicated to science or technology, these raw fountains of Quintessential energy favor a primal sort of reality. Although Nodes often count as the High Resonance/ Synergy Zones described above, the really potent ones – especially werewolf caerns, ancient ruins, and unspoiled glades – reject technology and accept only the Old Ways as coincidental within their area. The Old Roads: As detailed in Chapters Four and Nine, the Paths of the Wyck refuse to accept advanced technology. Technomagick simply doesn’t work, period. Nothing happens. The primal Arts, however, function as well there now as they did 5000 years ago. The Otherworlds: Aside from a few Realms and regions, the Otherworlds render most forms of technomagick vulgar. The Void Engineers and Society of Ether have spent centuries crafting their exceptional technologies… and even then, the laws of Reality do not favor them. Etherspace – the region between Horizons – seems to enjoy a bit of mad science; every form of magick is coincidental there, regardless of its form or practice, although acts that violate the Earthly Foundations might still become vulgar if the mages get too bold. (Space travel? Sí! Time travel? No!) Shifting the Zone As an optional rule, the reality-zone concept can give players and characters something to gain by changing the dominant paradigm. By working to shift the local beliefs – that is, by getting the Sleeping Masses to accept your ideas – you might actually be able to change a reality zone. The core reality zone – Earthly Foundations – is almost impossible to move with anything short of vulgar magick. The other three zones, however, are flexible. Significantly dramatic acts within the story can change them. This way, a Mage group can join the battle for reality and maybe even win.
616 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Flipping Zones Flipping a zone – that is, making a sudden polar shift from Technocratic Reality to Primal Reality – is almost impossible for a small group or single individual. The Technocracy and Traditions have been trying to accomplish such feats for centuries, and neither one has succeeded. Instead, the shifts come about by changing Localized Reality, winning hearts and minds over to a particular cause. Such shifts have massive repercussions. The gradual shift from Primal to Technocratic realities has involved a gradual process and several catastrophes like the Triangle Trade and both World Wars. A polar shift back to Primal Reality would be even more catastrophic – it would be the sudden collapse of everything we hold to be real… in short, an Apocalypse from which almost nothing from our world remains. That almost happened during the Week of Nightmares, but it has not happened yet. And although many mystics speak fondly about such things in an abstract sense, no sane person wants them to happen for real. (Marauders, of course, are insane by definition… and although the Nephandi might possess some awful form of sanity, it’s not one most other people share.) Localized Shifts Localized Reality, on the other hand, can be won by people who gain enough influence to shift those local beliefs. In the old days, this generally involved conquering people, either through military domination or cultural assimilation. These days, though, it’s easier to win people over by playing to their emotions than it is to beat on them until they do things your way. (See Iraq, Afghanistan, and the USA.) Mages don’t really have the option of conquering the Masses, although some occasionally still try to do so. Instead, Awakened factions influence Sleepers by offering them the reality that those people seem to want. As Mage Revised points out, Technocracy Reality holds the upper hand… not because HIT Marks and Black Suits rule the world, but because people would rather have homes and laptops than wizards with funny hats. That apparent victory, though, doesn’t look like the Technocratic ideal. By the Union’s standards, it’s a mess. Why? Because people are complicated, and so is our reality. Paradigm Shifts Under the Shifting the Zone option, groups of players may achieve influence within a Localized Reality zone. Depending upon the chronicle, they might even expand that influence across several zones, gradually tipping the Technocratic or Primal balance in their favor. Doing so, however, should be a story-based process, not a dice-rolling contest. After all, if a few dozen successes could dominate Reality, then everyone on Earth would be some Oracle’s bitch. So how can a handful of mages begin to turn Localized Reality in their favor? Typically, such paradigm shifts involve winning the Masses over to a certain vision through one or more of the following tactics: • Make life better for the people, and credit those improvements to your paradigm. • Make life worse for the people, encouraging them to do things your way. • Blame problems on scapegoats and offer an alternative. • Give the people something to fear and hate; profit from the results. • Undermine everything and take advantage of the chaos. • Offer salvation for the Masses’ pain. • Create or reveal something so impressive and/ or beautiful that the Masses will remember it. • Present a pleasing alternative to an unpleasant status quo. Cinematic License Movies, for many of us, seem real. Sure, they break the laws of reality… and in many cases, we know that they do. Still, they seem so real that the 21st-century realm of Mage often accepts cinematic reality as coincidental, even when folks know intellectually that things like Terminators or blast pistols can’t possibly exist… can they? In places where Technocratic Reality determines the boundaries of coincidence, assume that mages can get away with small acts of cinematic license that fit the mode of popular action movies. Outrunning explosions, unexpected meetings, the disappearing Batman trick, fistfights that would put a dozen normal brawlers in the ICU… a movie-savvy mage can pull such stunts and generally expect to get away with them. Even so, technology holds the edge; Sleepers will accept Fast & Furious car stunts more easily than they’ll accept bullet-time dodges from The Matrix. Gritty fantasy films, SF action thrillers, and superhero movies mark the upper limits of cinematic license in the Technocratic world. The Masses might accept the realistic tone of Chris Nolan’s first two Dark Knight films, but Man of Steel isn’t gonna fly, so to speak. Even the more technophilic action flicks, like Iron Man, are pushing the bounds of credibility. A mage could get away with riffing on Casino Royale or The Hunger Games, but she’d best steer clear of Resident Evil stunts. Wild action and obvious fantasy films step way outside the bounds of cinematic credibility. No one accepts stuff like Lucy or Kung Fu Hustle as coincidental. Although certain localized reality zones might turn a blind eye to Kill Bill-level feats, movies like Inception or House of Flying Daggers are spectacularly vulgar, though really entertaining.
Chapter Ten: The Book of Magic 617 • Circulate a meme so compelling that the Masses will embrace it. (See Memes, p. 594.) • Present innovations so radical that they accomplish one or more of the other feats. (cf. television, the Internet, nukes, democracy.) All of the previous examples, incidentally, are based on things that have brought about real-life, real-world paradigm shifts. Like personal and cultural paradigms, a reality shift must meet the needs of normal people – an elite group of especially influential people, perhaps, but still “normal” people who have enough cultural clout to tip the balance of belief in their favor. Concepts like “trickle-down economics,” for instance, meet the needs of a small group of people while going against the needs of the Masses, and yet that particular concept maintains a hold upon reality because a lot of people believe themselves to be members of that elite group even when facts and evidence suggest otherwise. As the section about Creating Other Paradigms points out (see pp. 571-572), enduring beliefs follow needs, withstand challenges, and depend upon evidence. If your mages wish to shift the localized reality toward their designs, then they must create a reality that serves people other than themselves. In game terms, check out The Reality Challenge in Chapter Nine for suggestions about how player characters might bring about a local paradigm shift. Such challenges, after all, are decided by changing the local reality in the Masses’ favor. As a general rule, assume that paradigm shifts come more from social influence and technical or artistic innovations than through beating someone’s ass. The idea that overthrowing one reality by force will immediately lead to the reality you prefer is nice in theory… but, as history shows, it never really works that way. Change the Game and Change Your World The choice between those options belongs to each individual group and Storyteller. Mage, however, has always been dedicated to the idea of transformation. The very first tagline for Mage – one that was never actually published and which appeared only on the in-house drafts created by the original authors – was “A Storytelling game of changing reality.” And although that sentiment lacks the immediacy of Mage’s other taglines, the idea that you CAN change the world is an essential element of the game. As Uncle Al said, do what you Will.
618 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters. — Francisco de Goya Supporting Cast In the hectic epic of a willworker’s life, a host of potential allies and enemies provides the supporting cast. The following templates can fill in Background Traits, inspire characters, answer summonses, punish Paradox backlashes, embody alternate forms, chase your heroes around town, and otherwise keep your Mage adventures hopping. Bestiary Some mages are urbanites who rarely see anything wilder than a house cat or a pigeon. Others prefer to live in remote wilderness regions, and a few mages use Life Sphere magick to take on the form of animals. Certain Sons of Ether and Progenitors also employ a wide range of experimental beasts – enhancing their intelligence, placing control circuits into their brains, or using drugs and gene therapy to give them new and powerful capabilities. And then you’ve got Familiars (as in the Background described in Chapter Six), many of which take the form of animals with extraordinary intellect and a few other surprises. Normal animals have only Physical and Mental Traits, because their Social traits are largely irrelevant for interacting with humans. Few have Intelligence scores higher than 2 or Perception scores lower than 3. Damage inflicted by animals is typically lethal, although the Storyteller may decide that small animals (housecat or small-dog size) inflict bashing damage instead. Medium-size animals (dogs, chimps, wolves, etc.) inflict lethal damage with their teeth and bashing damage with their claws. For familiars, or manifestations of totem spirits, add one to three dots and dice to the Traits below, plus whatever other Abilities seem appropriate. (For details about incarnated totem demigods, see Totem Spirits, p. 633-636.) Alligator Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 3, Stamina 6, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Stealth 3 Willpower: 5 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, -1, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 1 (seven soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for seven dice; tail slap for six dice. Bird, Small (Finch, Sparrow, Pigeon, etc.) Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Expression (Mimicry) 2 Willpower: 1 Health Levels: OK, -1, -5, Dead Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 619 Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total) Attack: Harassment (-1 die on all target’s dice pools while being harassed). Bird, Substantial (Hawk, Raven, Owl, etc.) Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Awareness 1 (3 for ravens, crows, and owls), Brawl 2, Intimidation 2 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total) Attack: Claw for two dice (bashing); bite for one die (only in desperation). Bird, Large (Eagle, Swan, Vulture, etc.) Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Intimidation 2 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Wings for four dice (bashing); claw for four dice (bashing); bite for two dice (lethal). Cat, Domestic-Size Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics (Climbing) 4, Awareness 2, Brawl 2, Empathy 3, Intimidation 1, Stealth 4 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for one die (bashing); claw for one die (lethal); rake for two dice (lethal) when cornered. Chimpanzee Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Acrobatics 3, Alertness 3, Athletics (Climbing) 4, Brawl 2, Empathy 1, Intimidation 2 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for five dice; claw for four dice. Dog, Small (Chihuahua, Pug, etc.) Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Empathy 2, Stealth 2 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for two dice (lethal). Dog, Medium (Beagle, Border Collie, etc.) Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Brawl 2, Empathy 2, Stealth 2, Survival (Tracking) 4 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for three dice (lethal); claw for two dice (bashing). Dog, Large (German Shepherd, Great Dane, etc.) Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Awareness 3, Brawl 3, Empathy 2, Intimidation 2, Stealth 2, Survival (Tracking) 4 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for five dice (lethal); claw for three dice (bashing). Horse Attributes: Strength: 5, Dexterity 2, Stamina 4, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 2 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Brawl 1, Empathy 2 Willpower: 2 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -3, -3, -3, -5, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 1 (five soak dice, total) Attack: Trample or kick for six dice (bashing); bite for three (lethal). Leopard, Jaguar, Panther, or Cougar Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Brawl 3, Empathy 2, Intimidation 2, Stealth 4 Willpower: 4 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for five dice; claw for five dice (all lethal). Lynx or Bobcat Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics (Climbing) 4, Awareness 2, Brawl 3, Empathy 2, Intimidation 2, Stealth 4 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for four dice; claw for three dice; rake for four dice (all lethal).
620 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Tiger or Lion Attributes: Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Stamina 4, Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Awareness 2, Brawl 3, Empathy 3, Intimidation 5, Stealth 3 Willpower: 4 Health Levels: OK, OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 1 (five soak dice, total) Attack: Bite for seven dice; claw for six dice (all lethal). Wolf Attributes: Strength 3-4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3-4, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 1, Awareness 2, Brawl 3, Empathy 2, Intimidation 3, Stealth 2, Survival (Tracking) 4 Willpower: 3 Armor Rating: 0 (three to four soak dice, total) Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated Attack: Bite for four or five dice (lethal); claw for three or four dice (bashing). Among the Masses Even the most reclusive and misanthropic mage occasionally deals with Sleepers. Most Awakened folks live amidst the Masses… and even those who don’t do so will eventually wind up interacting with at least a few Sleepers. That’s especially true if you’ve got the Backgrounds Allies, Backup, Cult, Retainers, or Spies (see Chapter Six), which put such characters into your mage’s employ. Lab assistants, security guards, toughs, lovers, groupies, acolytes, cultists, converts, and so forth… if and when a group of mages finds itself crossing words or swords with such people, the following templates will come in handy. Typical Citizen The average citizen in a non-combat zone has some useful abilities but no fighting skills to speak of. Though scrappy individuals (bullies, hookers, folks with a few self-defense classes under their belts) might have a dot or two in Brawl – perhaps even Firearms or a Martial Art – the typical mortal (as if such a thing exists!) has a professional skill or two, a hobby, and the basic skills necessary to operate household and professional technologies (cars, cell phones, computers, etc.). If that person’s an athlete, yoga enthusiast, personal trainer, or so forth, she might have higher Physical Traits than usual. Receptionists, lab assistants, students, informants, reporters, artists, and so forth might be very good at their jobs (Mental Attributes and a professional skill of 3 or higher), but they still tend to make themselves scarce if punches, bullets, or lightning bolts start flying. Most Cultists, Retainers, and low-level Backup personnel (as per those Background Traits) fall into this category. Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 1-3, Manipulation 1-3, Appearance 1-4, Perception 1-3, Intelligence 1-4, Wits 2 Suggested Abilities: Area Knowledge 1-3, Athletics 0-2, Crafts 0-3, Computer 1-3, Drive 1-2, Firearms 3, Technology 1-3 (plus Talents, Skills, or Knowledges appropriate to their field or hobby, 1-3) Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Equipment: Wallet, cell phone, typical clothing and gear for the appropriate setting. Image: This person could be anyone. Roleplaying Notes: Depending on your motivations, your behavior runs the range of human experience. Thug Some folks love to fight. Maybe they’re drunken frat guys, obnoxious barflies, furious protesters, boys, women, or men who’ve got more issues than sense. It’s pretty easy to end up on the bad side of such people, especially in the World of Darkness. Cults with particularly shady membership have lots of these sorts of people among the congregation. Although they don’t put up much resistance against a stronger foe, thugs can give a mage or two a decently hard time unless that person’s got some mad skills on display. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 2, Perception 2, Intelligence 1, Wits 2 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Area Knowledge 1, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Crafts 2, Drive 1, Intimidation 1, Melee 2, Streetwise 1, Technology 1 Willpower: 3 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Equipment: Wallet and stuff, improvised weapons (pool cues, broken bottles, tire irons, chairs, protest signs, and so on). Image: A rough and cocky attitude, perhaps accentuated by a few scars or old injuries, betrays this person’s willingness to fight. Roleplaying Notes: Fighting is a rush. You enjoy it, and you’re pretty decent at it, if you must say so yourself! Beat Cop In the World of Darkness, most beat cops have seen things they don’t understand… but they also know that cops who investigate mysterious occurrences too often tend to either vanish or else develop an odd aversion to discussing such events. Instead, police officers tell stories of the strange things they see, then warn each other about the need to report anything too strange to the FBI or some similar agency. Beat cops react to magick very differently, depending upon what they see. Someone who presents the cop with a badge or other ID indicating that she’s part of some government or military agency while carrying a device that appears to be a piece of impressively advanced or unlikely technology will be treated with deference and respect. In contrast, most police treat an oddly dressed and obviously eccentric individual who’s waving crystals around or gibbering in unknown languages as a threat. Police are likely to arrest, beat, or even shoot such a person, depending upon how threatened the police officer feels and how menacing that individual seems to be. In recent years, police forces (especially within the United States) have been supplied with military-grade hardware, the training to use it, and the ability to do terrible things with it and get away with them. Because street-level crime rarely demands
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 621 armored vehicles and combat-ready troops, those police forces often escalate even the most routine situations to small-scale battle zones. Given the heightened police response to the Occupy demonstrations, the Arab Spring demonstrations, and the Ferguson protests, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a clash with beat cops will turn into a local war within hours… if not minutes, especially in the World of Darkness. Mages who want to mess with the cops should expect very harsh consequences. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Area Knowledge 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Computer 1, Drive 2, Firearms 3, Intimidation 1, Investigation 2, Law 2, Melee 2, Stealth 1, Streetwise 2, Technology 2 Willpower: 5 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Equipment: Badge and ID card, heavy pistol, riot baton, pepper spray, Taser, radio, police uniform. Urban police officers often wear Kevlar vests when expecting trouble. Escalated responses could provide these same cops with riot suits and shields, shotguns or assault rifles, pacification spray, and military vehicles. Image: Typical beat cops wear the local lawenforcement uniform, carry the essential gear, and share the infamous, wary cop stare that notes small details and brooks no bullshit. SWAT officers and escalatedresponse teams wear body armor, carry military weapons, and employ brutal, sometimes lethal, tactics. Roleplaying Notes: You’ve seen more awful things than you’re willing to discuss with anyone outside the Thin Blue Line. Except under the most extreme circumstances, you’re loyal to your fellow cops; you might not care for individuals, but only other officers can understand what you go through. Professional Badass Organized crime and military armed forces are powerful and pervasive groups… but they’re also mortal subcultures in which even the most accomplished members can easily become the pawns of mages, vampires, spirits, and other supernatural creatures. As a result, many criminals are fairly superstitious (maybe even cowardly!), and all of them know that when something looks too weird, it’s time to get the hell outta Dodge. Even so, professional badasses – security specialists, mob enforcers, SWAT team members, assassins, gangbangers, military personnel, martial artists, and so on – regard themselves as very dangerous people. And by average-citizen standards, they’re right. Such folks can’t afford to seem cowardly or weak. As a result, you’ll often find these badasses working for vampires, werecritters, dangerous organizations, rival mages, and perhaps even you! (The Allies, Backup, and Spies Backgrounds generally employ these types of characters.) Suggested Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, Appearance 1-3, Perception 2-4, Intelligence 2-4, Wits 3-4 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 2-4, Brawl 3-4, Drive 2, Firearms 3-5, Intimidation 3, Martial Arts 0-4, Melee 1-3, Stealth 2, Streetwise 3-5, Subterfuge 2, Technology 1-3
622 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Willpower: 6 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Equipment: Kevlar vest (perhaps heavy body armor in combat situations), knife and/ or club, shotgun or submachine gun, car, and various appropriate goodies. Image: Regardless of individual appearance or fashion, a professional badass has the predatory look of someone who’s survived many violent encounters and plans to survive many more. Roleplaying Notes: Violence is your business, and business is good. Government Agent These operatives belong to the FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, or some other alphabet-soup organization and show up when serious crimes occur – typically terrorism, kidnapping, serial killings, espionage, counterfeiting, drastic hacking, or apparent breaches of national security. In the World of Darkness, police and other local authorities often call in government agents after encountering inexplicable events. Local and national governments recognize that the world is not what it seems to be, so they send out agents to investigate and neutralize such threats. Regardless of whether she’s been called in to investigate a human serial killer or to check out reports about events that seem to defy the laws of physics, a government agent knows that her job is both important and dangerous. If she encounters someone performing obvious magick or triggering any other sort of paranormal event, she’ll draw her gun, call for backup, and almost certainly start shooting if the supernatural activity appears to be in any way threatening. Most government agents aren’t official members of the Technocratic Union and have never heard of it. Many inadvertently work for it anyway. They might even have encountered ranking Technocratic Operatives and then assumed the operatives belonged to another secretive and powerful government agency above the agent’s security clearance. The Union also monitors communications between government agents, sorts through reports, and debriefs agents who’ve been on interesting cases. If a government agent reports evidence of events that seem supernatural, the Technocracy (or perhaps the Nephandi…) might send in their own operatives to investigate and deal with apparent Reality Deviants. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2-3, Stamina 3-4, Charisma 2-4, Manipulation 3-5, Appearance 2, Perception 3-4, Intelligence 3-4, Wits 3-5 Suggested Abilities: Academics 3, Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Awareness 1, Brawl 2-3, Computer 2-3, Drive 2-3, Enigmas 1-3, Firearms 3-4, Investigation 3-5, Law 4, Martial Arts 1-3, Media 1-3, Melee 2-3, Politics 2-4, Research 2-4, Stealth 2, Streetwise 3, Technology 2-4 Willpower: 7 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Equipment: Badge and ID card, dark-colored suit, electronic surveillance devices, heavy pistol, sunglasses, plus body armor and heavier weapons in clearly dangerous situations.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 623 Image: Thorough training makes the average government field agent confident, well-groomed, capable, and at least slightly arrogant. In the field, such people wear clean and unusually durable professional clothing, with shoes and gear that look fashionable yet remain practical for heavy-duty work. Roleplaying Notes: You’re one of those folks standing at the edge of chaos… human or otherwise. Your training and experience make you formidable but not invincible, and you’ve probably had enough tough scrapes to understand the difference. Extraordinary Operatives and Technocratic Creations The vast majority of people working for the Technocratic Union are not Enlightened Operatives or Scientists. Instead, extraordinary scientists, technicians, and operatives handle many Technocratic chores. Beyond those rank-and-file sympathizers and proles, both Iteration X and the Progenitors create intelligent constructs that serve as guards, soldiers, spies, and assassins. Although the Union would never call any of its members “hedge magicians,” there’s a Technocratic equivalent to that archaic conceit: extraordinary citizens. Extraordinary scientists and field agents do not count as Sleeper witnesses, so long as the Effects in question are focused through some form of technomagick. Unlike many of their co-workers, extraordinary citizens know what the Technocracy is and tend to be extremely loyal to it. When a Technocratic operative calls for backup (as per the Background of that name) in sensitive (that is, paranormal) situations, these are the folks who show up. Such personnel can also use certain Technocratic Devices, though not Enlightened Procedures. And although most of these citizens work in labs, offices, and medical and equipment repair facilities, Convention field offices also deploy extraordinary field agents as well. Those agents typically carry one or two Devices; Iteration X agents often enjoy cybernetic implants, and Progenitor field personnel have various biomods (both as per the Enhancements Background). Even without such gear, extraordinary citizens carry tech that, among the Masses, would be considered bleeding-edge mega-cool. Extraordinary Scientist Staffing the labs that create, refine, and disseminate Technocracy hypertech, these visionaries enjoy high pay, professional prestige, and the coolest toys on Earth. Naturally, they know which side their Technocratic toast is buttered on, believe deeply in the Union’s cause, and rarely turn on their employers except in the most dire circumstances… and seldom escape intact if they do. Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Academics 4, Alertness 2, Awareness 2, Computer 3, Drive 1, Enigmas 1, Firearms 1, Hypertech 3, Investigation 2, Leadership 1, Medicine 2, Occult 1, Science (several suitable specialties) 4, Technology 4 Willpower: 5 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total) Equipment: Extraordinary scientists can manufacture, modify, repair, and employ Technocratic Devices and so tend to have all kinds of neat gear within close reach. Image: Smart, cultured, and visionary, these men and women work near the tops of their respective fields… and they know it, too. Roleplaying Notes: “…the brightest boys/ to play with the biggest toys…” Extraordinary Field Agent The wide range of field agents employs an equally wide range of skills. Depending on the Convention, Methodology, and purpose of the agent in question, such personnel may also have the following Abilities, and perhaps others as well: Crafts, Energy Weapons, Esoterica, Martial Arts, Law, Politics, Seduction, and other Abilities appropriate to the agent in question. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3-5, Dexterity 3-4, Stamina 3-5, Charisma 2-5, Manipulation 3-5, Appearance 2-5, Perception 3-4, Intelligence 3-5, Wits 3-4 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Brawl 2, Computer 2-4, Drive 1-3, Firearms 2-5, Hypertech 2-4, Investigation 3, Leadership 1, Medicine 1, Occult 2, Science 2-3, Streetwise 2-5, Technology 2-5 Willpower: 6 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (three to five soak dice, total) Equipment: Field ops, like other extraordinary citizens, can employ Technocratic Devices. Some have cybernetics or biomods that suit their respective duties, though such modifications tend to be subtle for all but the most invested operatives – see Cybernetics and Biomods and Genegineering Modifications in Appendix II, (pp. 657-661). High-ranking agents also have access to the Visual Data & Analysis Spectrum (VDAS) described in Appendix II, (pp. 655-656). Image: Typical field agents look like whatever their particular assignment demands. Regardless of their position, though, these folks are not pushovers. To reach this level, a person must be, as the title suggests, extraordinary. And whatever an operative wears, that aura of competence shines through. Roleplaying Notes: Yours is a hazardous and remarkable honor. Do your best to live up to it. Common “Steelskin” Cyborg Among the most effective field operatives in the Technocratic Union, the common cyborgs of Iteration X have received specialized mechanical and biomodification upgrades: increased strength and durability, life-support gear, built-in tools, sensors, or weapons, and so forth. Originally mundane human beings (or sometimes animals), they’re now something more advanced than they once were. Although they’ve been conditioned to accept their newlives (and thus tend to be among the most loyal Technocratic personnel), these exos retain a degree of free will, if not much individual identity.
624 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Typically known by alphanumerical designations (X-235, for example), steelskins often work as manual laborers, security personnel, infiltrators, investigators, and hunter-killer operatives. Despite their apparent depersonalization, though, they often retain distinct motivations and appearance unless they’ve had to go back for frequent Social Conditioning. In that regard, Technocracy cyborgs are essentially folks with odd, sometimes drastic, modifications and an unusually stubborn sense of duty to the Technocratic Union in general and Iteration X in particular. Unlike HIT Marks, these agents are not machines – they’re people. Truly dedicated (or severely Conditioned) exos lose most of their personality, but many operatives retain it unless something awful happens… which, in the World of Darkness, it often, eventually, does. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3-4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4, Charisma 2, Manipulation 1, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Brawl 2, Computer 2, Drive 1, Firearms 2-4, Investigation 2, Medicine 1, Melee 1, Science 2-3, Technology 3-5 Willpower: 5 (3 with regards to Technocratic programming) Health Levels: OK, OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 1 (five soak dice, total) Attacks/ Powers: Variable; all cyborgs possess implanted radios with cell phone and wireless Internet capabilities, plus USB ports and other data storage and linkage technologies. Every cyborg also has several additional implants and Traits, depending upon an individual’s purpose: • Combat agents gain +2 to Strength, Brawl, Firearms, and Melee; claws that do Strength +1 lethal damage; and +2 armor (bashing & lethal). •Investigation agents add +3 to Computer and Investigation; possess IR and UV vision, plus enhanced hearing and smell (in game terms, reduce the difficulty of hearing and smell rolls -2, to a minimum of 2), and a VDAS datacrawl Device. • Intrusion agents add +2 to Computer, Stealth, and Technology, and contain built-in tools and access jacks that reduce the difficulty of Technology and computer-hacking rolls by -2 (to a minimum of 2), plus a VDAS datacrawl. Image: Despite the name, most steelskins look like fairly ordinary people (if somewhat bulkier than usual) with rather severe haircuts and mannerisms. Heavily processed cyborgs have shaved heads and bodies (regardless of gender) and a disconcerting flatness to their voices and gaze. Depending on their assignment, they might wear uniforms, street clothes, or coveralls that render them more or less sexless and monochromatic. Roleplaying Notes: The Union is your life and Iteration X is your savior. Order is essential, and deviance is a crime. Victor Homo superior gets grown in a vat, tweaked to perfection, and released into the world through the genius of the Progenitor Convention. Whether male or female, this person’s designation is “Victor” – an apparent jest whose origin remains unclear. Bred and conditioned to serve designated purposes, these apparently human beings act as clones of special individuals, field-assignment agents, infiltration experts, and public-relations symbols of the excellence that is the Technocratic Union. Older-generation Victors tended to be rather dull-minded. The newer generations are quicker on the uptake, with dazzling hand-eye coordination and staggeringly good looks. Like their predecessors, new-millennium Victors seem stubbornly immune to pain – they recognize damage but don’t appear to feel its effects. That said, they’re still subject to mental instability (a psychological manifestation of Paradox, perhaps?), and – unlike cyborgs – remain unable to Awaken to the greater sense of things. Although they can use hypertech Devices, they cannot employ Enlightened Procedures, and thus remain limited in their usefulness to the Technocracy. Suggested Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 5, Stamina 4, Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 4, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 4, Brawl 4, Firearms 4, Melee 4, Technology 3; depending on their training, most Victors also have two or three of the following Abilities at between one and four dots per Ability: Computer, Drive, Etiquette, Intimidation, Government, Martial Arts, Politics, Science, Seduction, Stealth, Streetwise, Subterfuge. Willpower: 4 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -2, -5, Terminated Armor Rating: 0 (but see below) Attacks/ Powers: Beyond their immunity to pain, all Victors all have one or two Enhancements (as per the Background Trait). For examples, see the Biomods and Genegineering Modifications featured in Appendix II. Countermagick: 2 dice of innate countermeasures. Image: A combination of breathtakingly good looks, feline grace, animal charm, and supreme fitness give the Victors an air of superiority. Unless one has been modified (or specially grown) to replace a particular person, these clones share the kind of aesthetic perfection you see on magazine covers and fitness advertisements. Victors look Photoshopped, but they obviously are not. That said, they have a near-universal tendency toward volatile emotions, mental illness, and irrational behavior. Roleplaying Notes: You don’t just look better than everybody else – you are better than everybody else! The Technocracy may be your god, but you’re superior to damn near everyone who’s not a high-ranking Technocrat. Do your job with pride, but never forget that you’re the next iteration in human development… no matter what anyone else might think! HIT Marks Hyper-Intelligent Tactical units – formerly Hyper Intelligence Technologies, aka HIT Marks – provide the classic shock troops of Iteration X… and, more recently, the last-resort terror agents of Panopticon and the NWO. Although such extreme operatives have gone out of fashion in recent years, the Union still maintains, tinkers with, and occasionally upgrades these cybernetic machines. Drastic situations call for drastic measures, and in certain crises HIT Mark deployment seems… dare we say, traditional.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 625 All HIT Marks appear to be somewhat bulky humans, so long as they remain fully dressed – muscular, but not inhuman. Careful observers who know what to look for, however, (Perception + Awareness, difficulty 8) might notice an occasional, flickering red glow in a HIT Mark’s eyes as its targeting systems scan its environment. A HIT Mark’s programming allows it to mimic human social interaction, but such monstrosities are far from good at it. Neither human nor machine but an uncanny fusion of both that’s not even as human as a highly enhanced cyborg, each HIT Mark is essentially a skilled weapons system with vague sentience and ruthless targeting protocols. Previous iterations (so to speak…) of these infamous machines featured deadly yet unreliable weapons, bulky design, heavy construction, and a fearsome susceptibility to the Paradox Effect. Subsequent redesigns (especially during the days of the full-scale RD purge of the previous decade) lowered the weight, increased flexibility, improved the camouflage systems (read: the ability to mimic human beings), and – most importantly – refined the HIT Marks’ Paradox Effect profile. One short-lived version even incorporated the sentience of mind-wiped rival mages, but that experiment proved disastrous for everyone involved. The most current generation, however, can pass for human under most conditions, assuming that they’re not forced into the sort of awkward social interactions that often betray their kind. Meanwhile, the popularity of movies featuring killer cyborgs, and the advancements in drone-weapon systems, allow the newest forms of HIT Mark to remain coincidental within technological reality zones. This, of course, makes them easier to deploy in urban environments… and if the Technocracy’s true leadership has noticed this capability (which is probably the case), then there might be a growing army of HIT Mark Xs prepared for an approaching and terrible endgame… For details about HIT Marks VI-IX, see the sourcebook Gods, Monsters, and Familiar Strangers. HIT Mark V – “Old Rusty” The classic model from the 1990s is an antique now. Even after five new iterations, however, the Mark V still brings a shudder to Tradition mages everywhere. The most infamous model of its infamous line, the Mark V was a common sight in the old days. Despite its shortcomings, it’s still a nasty piece of work. Several dozen units remain in service throughout both the Union and the ranks of its assorted allies. Even the occasional vampire or Pentex Industries operative appears with a HIT Mark V nearby, its power undimmed by its supposed obsolescence. How do Reality Deviants obtain such things? That’s one of many skeletons hiding in the Union’s collective closet… Attributes: Strength 5, Dexterity 2, Stamina 5, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 4, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 2 Abilities: Alertness 3, Brawl 3, all Skills and Knowledges 3 (excepting Cosmology, Esoterica, Meditation, Occult, and Stealth, all of which are 0) Willpower: 5 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -5, Terminated Armor Rating: 4 (nine soak dice, total) Attacks/ Powers: Chain gun (200 rounds; difficulty 7, damage 8, range 150, rate 3); claws (Strength + 3; eight dice total); infrared and ultraviolet vision. Many models also carry additional human-style weapons – typically firearms of various calibers, rocket launchers, grenades, shotguns, swords, knives, and chainsaws. All HIT Marks have been programmed to be able to use anything as a weapon, and they can employ Technocracy hypertech like an Awakened operative. Countermagick: Five dice worth of Primium countermeasures; older models had only two, but those models have since been destroyed.
626 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Image: A bulky badass, the typical Mark V is male, laconic, and dressed in heavy clothing to conceal various weapons and subtle, inhuman tics. Roleplaying Notes: Circulate, locate, exterminate. HIT Mark X – “The Invisible Soldier” Today’s standard HIT Mark model, the Mark X looks like an ordinary human who’s strong, fast, and extremely deadly, with a limited face-shifting ability that allows it to make cosmetic changes to its features, gender, and skin tone. Without internal examination or magick, a Mark X remains indistinguishable from a muscular, if somewhat taciturn, human being. Such machines are no better at social banter than any previous HIT Mark model, but they’re smart enough to know how to conceal this weakness; given the decline of social graces in recent years, such concealment isn’t difficult. Like its previous iteration, the HIT Mark IX, the newer model X employs a complex integration of nanotech and lab-grown organic tissue which creates a literally flexible biomachine. To counteract the Paradox issues of earlier iterations, the newest HIT Marks are more like super-soldiers than deathdealing war machines. Even so, they’re exceedingly effective and can take a lot of punishment. Suggested Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 4, Stamina 6, Charisma 1, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3, Perception 5, Intelligence 2, Wits 4 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 4, Brawl 4, Firearms 4, Melee 4, all other Skills & Knowledges 3, with the exceptions above. Willpower: 6 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, -5, Terminated Armor Rating: 6 (12 dice soak, total) Attacks/ Powers: A Mark X unit lacks the internal firepower of previous models, but it can use human-sized gear and hypertech. A smaller claw array (damage: 8/L) gives this model an innate hand-to-hand component that – thanks to movies and comic books – remains essentially coincidental in technological reality zones. Beyond the usual sensory array of previous models, the Mark X has wireless Internet access and internal cell phone capability, plus five concealed USB ports, two high-capacity internal flash drives, and a VDAS datacrawl. A Mark X that loses its last health level automatically selfdestructs. Technocratic technicians can also set one to self-destruct if it’s captured or incapacitated. Normally, this selfdestruct function just fuses and melts all internal components into biomechanical slag. A skilled technician, however, can also cause the Mark X to explode, inflicting 8 dice of lethal damage upon everyone within four yards of the Mark X. Countermagick: Four dice of Primium countermeasures. Image: Though bulky and muscular, the Mark X looks unsettlingly human – a bit thick, perhaps, but not nearly as obvious as previous iterations had been. Roleplaying Notes: Like a professional solider, you’ve been trained and conditioned to do whatever must be done. That said, you’ve got something approximating free will… not much of it, but enough to blur the line between human and machine to a degree that your creators would find truly unsettling. Our Awakened Brethren Every mage knows at least a few others of her kind. Among the many friends, rivals, and enemies along a mage’s Path, the following Awakened folks might wind up playing a role in your chronicle or inspiring other mages along the way. Urban Shamanic Musician For some folks, the Path of the spirits requires potent hallucinogens, fasting, painful ordeals, complex meditative sigils, or hours of dancing and chanting. Other people find a swift and beautiful path to the world of the spirits using the creative power of music. Many folks think of shamans as residents of the Siberian wilderness, remote corners of the Amazon jungle, or other isolated and indigenous locales. Certain seekers, however, call upon the spirits of streetlights, pigeons, and skyscrapers rather than the spirits of rivers, wolves, or forests. Jamming in bars and coffeehouses, asking advice from urban spirits, an urban shaman seeks to bring balance and harmony to humanity’s ever-growing cities. In doing so, Hacking a HIT Mark Earlier versions of the HIT Mark design – versions I through IV – were susceptible to “reprogramming” by computerhacking Virtual Adepts. By the Mark V model, however, those bugs had largely been eliminated (+4 difficulty to all hacking attempts) by a combination of biological tissue, improved programming, and Primium countermeasures. By the Mark VII model, hacking had been rendered more or less impossible, thanks to the fusion of computer technology and biological brain matter. By the Mark X model, the computer-hacking glitch has been completely eliminated… one of several problems solved by the transition from thinking machine to biomechanical organism. As self-governed machines, the HIT Marks cannot be cracked via remote access. A Reality Deviant needs to get his hands on each individual HIT Mark… a task, that, for obvious reasons, is not as easy as it sounds! Characters who want to hack an early-model HIT Mark need to spend at least 10 minutes with that task, making one Intelligence + Hypertech roll (difficulty equal to the HIT Mark’s model name – i.e. 5 for a Mark V) for each iteration of the model (again, five rolls for a Mark V). A HIT Mark X can be reprogrammed only with a combination of Matter 3/ Mind 3/ Forces 2, plus the hacking rolls as above. The protocols necessary to program a HIT Mark X remain closely guarded secrets within Iteration X and the NWO. Even members of those Conventions rarely have access to such information if they’re below the Manager grade.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 627 she must fight the efforts of corrupt Technocrats, vampires, and other urban monsters, as well as the far more common problems like despair, apathy, greed, and the shitty income of a working musician. Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 4, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3, Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Academics 1, Alertness 2, Art (several musical instruments) 4, Athletics 1, Awareness 3, Brawl 1, Computer 1, Cosmology 3, Drive 1, Enigmas 2, Esoterica (various disciplines) 4, Firearms 1, Occult 2, Stealth 2, Streetwise 3, Subterfuge 1, Technology 1 Suggested Arete: 3 or 4 Suggested Spheres: Forces 2, Prime 1, Spirit 3, Time 2 Willpower: 6 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 1 (leather jacket and pants; four soak dice, total) Equipment: Aging subcompact car, guitar, knife, light revolver, motorcycle leathers. Image: Decked out in urban-tribal fashion, our shaman could be distinctly ethnic, culturally ambiguous, or an apparently standard-issue, white-bread suburbanite whose Path has led her away from mainstream Americana and into a more bohemian life. Roleplaying Notes: The world is alive, and it speaks to you in a million voices – some harsh, some ugly, and others gorgeous beyond measure. Help give the best of them a voice in a world that has lost the gift of hearing them, and step carefully around the malignant ones so as not to fall into their traps. Focus: Guided by a paradigm like Creation’s Divine and Alive or It’s All Good – Have Faith, the urban shaman specializes in practices drawn from witchcraft, medicine work, gutter magick and/ or Voudoun in addition to her obvious shamanism, channeled through music and other related (and probably disreputable) instruments. Awakened Hacktivist Some information doesn’t want to be free, and many powerful people certainly want to keep it concealed. Even so, politically savvy computer-mages – many, but not all, of them Virtual Adepts – understand that releasing the right information in the proper places can spark social change and bring down governments. From Tahrir Square to Wall Street, these hacktivists work to uncover and publicize secrets that ignite popular reactions… and then spur those reactions toward bigger shifts of paradigm. Using Trinary smart phones and recording devices, Awakened idealists hack systems, record damning materials, and then disseminate them through the channels that get the most attention in the shortest periods of time. Called “terrorists” by officials in a multitude of governments, and considered “Reality Deviants” by much of the Technocracy, these individuals are among the most daring and adventurous members of their respective groups. Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 4 Suggested Abilities: Academics 3, Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Brawl 2, Computer 5, Drive 2, Enigmas 2, Firearms 1, Investigation 4, Media 3, Politics 4, Occult 1, Research 3, Science 2, Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 4, Stealth 2, Technology 4 Suggested Arete: 3 or 4 Suggested Spheres: Correspondence/ Data 3, Forces 2, Mind 2, Time or Entropy 2 Willpower: 7 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1 -2, - 2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 2 (armored T-shirt; five soak dice, total) Equipment: Enhanced Trinary smart phone or tablet, light pistol, fake press passes, data-storage devices, motorcycle or subcompact car. Image: Smart and furious, modern hacktivists either favor stylish and provocative clothing and haircuts, or else blend in with the scenery by dressing and acting as inconspicuously as possible. Both approaches have their merits, although dressing respectably tends to open more doors and win more sympathy from the Masses. Radical fashions can be fun but alienating, and most hacktivists have learned that mainstream outrage is the true tool of revolution. Roleplaying Notes: Delay, compromise, and silence are no longer possible… if indeed they ever were. The system is rigged and the bastards are everywhere. Kick in their doors and blow down their walls. Change demands action, and the time for both is now! Focus: Everything is Data, might also be Chaos, and is certainly on a One-Way Trip to Oblivion unless someone changes the signal. Thankfully, Tech Holds All Answers, so these technomancers employ reality hacking, cybernetics, hypertech, and perhaps other practices (chaos magick, hypereconomics, dominion, maybe even martial arts) to get the point across and change the world before it’s too late. Black Suit Except for gender and skin color, these mysterious beings all look more or less the same: a well-dressed person in a dark suit and sunglasses, usually carrying a briefcase and always driving an expensive car. Most, though not all, are bald and virtually hairless. Descendants of old-school black knights and the dark-clad investigators of Victoria’s elite detective corps, these are the front-line agents of the New World Order. Composed largely of clones created for such duty, the Black Suits begin as field agents with a chance at upward mobility. Cloned agents (derived from a handful of distinguished retirees of several different ethnicities) initially share a hive mind, whereas the NWO recruits other agents from the outside world and then Socially Conditions them to an appropriate degree of loyalty and competence. Agents who display potential are soon groomed for better things; some Awaken and get promoted, and the remainders function as rank-and-file field Operatives. The best of the best graduate to become Gray Suits, Intelligence Analysts, and perhaps even White Suited Gatekeepers. Although the Black Suits embody an obvious and unnerving authority, such Gatekeepers work in the shadows of that authority… and with far more competence than their obvious peers. Regardless of their degree of Enlightenment, all Black Suits appear soulless to anyone who examines them with Spirit magick;
628 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition their thoughts and memories remain hidden to all but the most skillful Masters of the Mind Sphere. Whether or not a particular Black Suit can, in game terms, use Technocratic magick, each one of them can employ Technocratic Devices and a Mind Sphere Effect that intimidates everyone nearby. (See below for details.) Black Suits typically travel in groups of between three and six agents, each member’s specializations complementing the others’. These agents seem to be immune – or at least resistant – to Paradox, but that might be because they rarely use vulgar Effects. Instead, they prefer subtle yet pervasive psychology, martial arts, and advanced weaponry. Black Suits appear taciturn, matter-of-fact, and intensely focused on their current mission. Very few of them display any sense of humor beyond a dry and understated sarcasm. When killed, Black Suits of all types rapidly dissolve into a pool of liquid that evaporates within seconds, leaving behind no evidence of their existence. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2, Perception 5, Intelligence 4, Wits 3 Suggested Abilities: Alertness 5, Athletics 2, Awareness 3, Brawl 2, Computer 3, Drive 2, Energy Weapons 3-5, Enigmas 1, Firearms 3, Hypertech 3, Intimidation 4, Investigation 3, Martial Arts 3-4, Meditation 2, Melee 3, Science (typically Psychology) 4, Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 3, Stealth 5, Technology 3 Suggested Arete: 3-5 (Enlightened Operatives only) Suggested Spheres: All Enlightened Black Suits have at least Mind 2, plus two to four other Spheres between Ranks 2 and 4. Typically, these Spheres are Forces, Prime, Time, or Entropy, occasionally Life or Correspondence/ Data. Willpower: 8 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, -1, -2, -2, -5, Vaporized Armor: 4 (in their ever-present suits; seven soak dice, total) Attacks/ Powers: In addition to guns and hypertech weapons, Black Suit teams generate a constant aura of fear around themselves. To overcome that aura, an enemy must make a Willpower roll against difficulty 5 +1 for every Black Suit present (maximum of 10). Even those characters who resist the full effects feel disconcerted in the presence of so much as a single Man in Black. Intimidation is an essential weapon in the Black Suit arsenal. Equipment: Hypertech smart phone, high-density mesh-weave suit (the armor mentioned above), armored briefcase, badge & ID card, heavy pistol, large black car, various Technocratic Devices, and a VDAS datacrawl. Image: See above; most Black Suits are Caucasian or Asian, though a select and growing number seem to be of African, Indian, or Latino origin. All Black Suits appear fit, imposing, and grim, composed and dignified under even the most difficult circumstances. Roleplaying Notes: Other agents might wield more brute power or technological weaponry, but you and your comrades are the finest and most essential agents in your Order’s employ. Remain proud and strong even in the face of fierce adversity. Focus: In A World of Gods and Monsters, Might is Right, and Tech Holds All Answers. Through a skillful combination of dominion, reality hacking and martial arts, a Black Suit employs all manner of technologies, from weaponry to meditation to force of social domination. Awakened Enemies Some of these dangerous, and often insane, individuals hide within the Traditions or the Union. Others blend in among the Masses. All of them can be deadly threats, especially when you don’t realize that you’ve met one until it’s far too late… Marauders Awful examples of Dynamism gone too far, each Marauder is an individual living out reality as he, she, it, or they sees it. Their apparent immunity to Paradox, combined with the disrupting effects they tend to have upon their surroundings, places them among the most fearsome threats a mage can face. Although certain Marauders share delusions common enough to allow them to work together, most of these Mad Ones operate in personal realities too arcane for any other mage to fathom. The lore surrounding these entities is mostly conjecture. Non-Marauder mages who try to understand them wind up confused at best, among them at worst. Because of their reality-warping powers, Marauders are typically run best as walking plot-devices who can – within reason – do whatever the plot requires. For more details, see the Chapter Five section about The Mad. Pillory (Nightmarish Marauder) Pillory began, so the story goes, as a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome and a taste for pain. It was the pain, she’d say, that brought her out of herself. As she grew, she allowed herself to fall into relationships so abusive and injurious that her Avatar’s shriek could be heard reverberating through the Otherworlds. Finally, one climactic burst of agony broke through her Sleep. Pillory Awakened… but that Awakening trapped her in a permanent nightmare that she now shares with everyone nearby. Essentially a solo Marauder, Pillory has crafted four arms for herself out of Life Magick. One holds a bell, which she constantly rings; one remains empty-handed; the third has forged itself into a razor-barred cage full of butterflies whose colors perpetually shift and change; and the fourth has become a whip with dozens of thick, spiked thongs. She has neither eyes nor a nose, nor ears – only a mouth gaping in an eternally silent scream. Spiders crawl in and out of that mouth, which opens not from her jaw, but from her forehead. A swirl of tangled hair hovers around Pillory’s head – a crackling, sick halo of coruscating blue. Her long dress shines in a deep, wet crimson shade. For the most part, Pillory remains in the Otherworlds, tormenting the spirits and tormented by them in return. From time to time, however, she seeps through into material reality, bringing with her a dark red mist that spreads out from her body like thick oily smoke. That smoke smells ripe and meaty, like air from a slaughterhouse. Each time she casts a spell, the bars on her butterfly cage open up; a flock of butterflies escapes, morphing into the effects of the spell itself. Those butterfly spells appear as smears of bright colors in the air. All the while, Pillory remains silent. Even ambient sounds fade to nothing when she comes near.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 629 Classified as an Extreme Marauder Complex Manifestation, Pillory has been known to take playmates – she’s especially fond of Nephandi and Ecstatics of the more sinister persuasion. That said, she neither speaks nor seems to hear anyone else speak. Wrapped in an extreme version of her original isolation, this Mad One floats about, snapping her whip, releasing her butterflies, and ringing a bell that makes no noise. In her presence, reality vibrates as if shaken by potent sound waves that no one can hear. Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 5, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 0, Perception 1, Intelligence 2, Wits 5 Abilities: Alertness 4, Awareness 1, Brawl 3, Computer 3, Cosmology 4, Intimidation 6, Melee 4, Stealth 3 Willpower: 8 Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (five soak dice, total) Arete: 6 Spheres: Correspondence 4, Entropy 3, Forces 2, Mind 4, Prime 2, Spirit 4 Equipment: Whip-fingers (damage 5/L; can grab and entangle targets), silent bell, butterfly cage-hand (all of which provide focus for her Arts). Image: See above. Roleplaying Notes: Though blind and deaf, you perceive your surroundings through Correspondence and Mind magicks. To you, nothing is real except pain, and that reality is your god. Share that Paingod with as many entities as possible. It enlightened you, after all, and it can do the same for every other being too. Focus: Ecstatic pain in an existence beyond sanity. Hive (Innocuous Marauder) Sometimes the deepest madness lives right next to us, moving through our world without a whisper until some unexpected disaster forces us to realize what was already there. In the case of Hive, that madness has many faces too – all of them working toward some unfathomable end. Hive isn’t a single Marauder… or rather, Hive is a single Marauder permanently co-located in several locations at once, with all of those selves linked through a hive-mind spell. Thankfully, Hive remains unaware of this fact. As far as Hive is concerned, Hive is an office drudge working at a dead-end job… at several places simultaneously. Each self has a different name, a different face, and a different identity. Essentially, Hive is a living Multiple Personality Disorder who’s consciously unaware of the tremendous power Hive commands. If Hive became aware of that power, life could get extremely difficult for a whole lot of people. The few people who know of Hive theorize that Hive was once a powerful wild talent, an even more powerful Virtual Adept, or a Technocratic employee who quietly snapped. Instead of exploding into the typical pyrotechnics, Hive manifested its low self-esteem as an embodied “human resource” rather than the powerful mage Hive could be otherwise. How, then, do people know Hive exists? Because Hive plays pranks on, and occasionally sabotages, Hive’s employers. “Hive” is a name attached to various exposé emails, blog posts, and leaked documents. Folks who’ve met Hive in the Digital Web recall a collection of fractal images that shift constantly – not an especially strange thing in Netspace, but memorable nonetheless. In material reality, Hive is a collection of nondescript office drones. If you met any of them, you’d never know that the particular drone is anyone of note. Especially observant characters (Perception + Awareness, difficulty 9) might pick up a tremble in Hive’s aura and hear a variety of voices buzzing in the vicinity of an otherwise unremarkable person. Beyond that, Hive answers only to the name of each individual person Hive embodies. On a conscious level (and to a surface Mind Sphere scan), those various minds seem dull, insecure, and utterly unremarkable. Only on a subconscious level does Hive realize what Hive truly is. Several of Hive’s manifestations work for Technocratic offices – not as extraordinary or Enlightened personnel but as mundane drudges. As a result, Hive leaks occasional Union secrets without even consciously realizing that the individual manifestations have even heard of a Technocracy to begin with. If and when Hive trips over some of the nastier skeletons in the Technocratic fruit basket, things could really get ugly… especially if, in the process, all of Hive’s selves wake up simultaneously… Suggested Attributes (per manifestation): Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 2, Perception 2, Intelligence 5, Wits 5 Suggested Abilities (likewise): Academics 3, Alertness 5, Awareness 5, Computer 4, Cosmology 2, Drive 1, Enigmas 2, Hypertech 3, Stealth 2, Sciences 3, Subterfuge 5, Technology 3, plus various individual skills appropriate to the various identities (treat as the Background Dream 5). Willpower: 8 (apparently 2) Health Levels (each manifestation): OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total) Arete: 7 Spheres: Correspondence 5, Entropy 2, Forces 2, Life 5, Mind 5, Prime 2, Spirit 2, Time 3 Equipment: Smart phone, laptop, pens, flash drives, and other tools of the modern office worker’s trade. Image: As mentioned above, Hive manifests as a number of low-tier office workers who – aside from their uncanny intellect and grasp of various skills – seem remarkable only by their complete ordinariness. These selves comprise several different sexes and ethnicities, each with complex backstories about their individual home lives. Some of these Hive entities even work in the same offices, apparently unaware that they’re all the same entity. Roleplaying Notes: Life’s so boring. If only something exciting would happen… Focus: Like many Mad Ones, Hive operates in a plane beyond conscious focus – unaware, in this particular case, that Hive’s even doing magick at all.
630 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Nephandi As mentioned in Chapter Five, the Fallen are rarely obvious. Under most circumstances, Nephandi appear to be someone or something else entirely unless they occupy the very lowest (and most expendable) ranks of their society. Widderslainte Cultist A small number of the Awakened are doomed and damned from the moment of their birth. Although most Nephandi are Awakened mages who go through the Cauls of their own volition, some Fallen are simply born that way, inheriting a twisted Avatar that had belonged to another Nephandus in a previous incarnation. Even before the Awakening, a widderslainte’s mind is tainted. Some of these deviants are cunning (and often violent) sociopaths who con and bully their way to power. The most dangerous ones, however, are quiet women and men who lose themselves in dark reveries, living unassuming lives until they start to realize their full, horrific potential. Once a Nephandic soul Awakens, a widderslainte mage soon makes contact with the inhuman entities he might have dreamed about since his strange and nasty childhood. Some natural-born Fallen find others of their kind, but many of them encounter foolishly hopeful mages who seek to redeem them. Attempts to “Save the Fallen One” almost always fail… and, in the process, take other mages down to death, despair, or the Cauls. Suggested Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Charisma 4, Manipulation 3, Appearance 3, Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 2 Suggested Abilities: Academics 2, Alertness 2, Art 2, Awareness 3, Brawl 2, Computer 2, Cosmology 2, Drive 1, Enigmas 3, Esoterica 2, Firearms 2, Melee 2, Occult 2, Stealth 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 3, Technology 2 Willpower: 5 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Suggested Arete: 3 Suggested Spheres: Entropy 2, Life 2, Spirit 2 Equipment: Black clothes, knife, small pistol, diary filled with corrupt stories and foul poems. Image: Our young Nephandus could be the archetypal misfit kid – male or female – whose interest in heavy metal and other outlaw music genres outweighs everything except a keen interest in the bizarre. Already somewhat of a bully, this demonic teen might be a school shooting waiting to happen. Worse still, she could be an apparently normal kid whose good grades and clean personality mask a cruel intellect and a sociopathic heart… in short, then, a budding politician or executive who aims devilish accusations at the innocent misfit kid who just wants to listen to Cradle of Filth in peace. Roleplaying Notes: There’s a black space in your heart that’s been in place since your birth. Although outsiders might blame your cruel and amoral behavior on bad parenting or warped circumstances, you know that you are, as they say, bad to the bone. Always have been, always will be, so you might as well enjoy it while you can.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 631 Focus: Everything is Chaos, and this person is happy to give it a little shove… or, perhaps, a really big one. Maleficia is this mage’s obvious practice, but it might be wrapped around something else – witchcraft, dominion, reality hacking, the Art of Desire, or some other appropriate discipline. NWO Infiltrator Although some Nephandi are born Fallen, most choose to enter the Cauls willingly. Their reasons can include numbing despair, implacable fury, a passion so intense that a person would literally sell her soul to get the object of her obsession, or simply the desire to be on what she believes to be the winning side. These last two motivations are especially common among members of the Technocratic Union who join the Nephandic ranks. When you’re already a fanatic, after all, going over the edge of decency is just a short step away from where you already stand. Fallen NWO operatives become some of the most dangerous Nephandi in the Union. As the Technocracy’s police force, these operatives have an easy time reshaping the Union to their darker purposes. They’re also among the infiltrators who are hardest to detect; their mastery of Mind Procedures allows them to conceal their thoughts and erase doubt and suspicion from the minds of their fellows and underlings. Like normal members of this Convention, NWO Nephandi excel at long-term planning. Many of their seemingly innocuous actions are parts of an extended plan to bring both the Masses and the Union under their complete control… and from there, to ultimate extinction. Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, Appearance 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 5 Suggested Abilities: Academics 3, Alertness 4, Awareness 3, Brawl 3, Computer 3, Cosmology/ Subdimensions 2, Drive 2, Enigmas 2, Firearms 3, Hypertech 3, Intimidation 4, Martial Arts 3, Melee 2, Stealth 3, Sciences 3, Subterfuge 5, Technology 4 Willpower: 8 Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated Armor Rating: 4 (from high-density mesh-weave suit; seven soak dice, total) Suggested Arete: 6 Suggested Spheres: Correspondence/ Data 4, Entropy 3, Forces 3, Mind 4, Prime 3, Dimensional Science 3 Equipment: High-density mesh-weave suit, armored sedan, Technocratic smart phone, heavy pistol, VDAS gear, and hidden surprises of various nasty kinds that range from Technocratic goodies to Nephandic Talismans and tactics. Image: He looks like a Man in Gray – cheerless, accomplished, and formidably capable. He’s got the same sort of blurred thoughts as any Black Suit, and for good reason: in reality, he’s playing the most dangerous game imaginable, among playmates whose primary vocation involves turning minds inside out. As a survivor – even a master – of that game, he’s unspeakably good at what he does. No lesser mage could match his achievements, and the fact that he has succeeded thus far testifies to his supreme competence. Roleplaying Notes: In a world of double-blinds and perilous truths, you exist along the razor’s edge between superiors who know what you are and peers who’d kill you horribly if they recognized your true allegiance. The Nephandi might run the Union from the inside out, but at your level, and in your Convention, this is still a dangerous proposition. Subvert your supposed allies, terrorize your known enemies, spread the agenda of your hidden masters, and recognize that you’ll all be screaming in the end. Focus: On a One-Way Trip to Oblivion, he’s the conductor of the secret train to hell. On the surface, he employs the tools and practices of a typical NWO operative; below his subversions, however, it’s maleficia all the way down. Spirits Outside the material world looms the greater reality of the spirit realm. Its Umbrood denizens remain largely on the far side of our Gauntlet. From time to time, however, they manifest on the Earthly side of that barrier… or wind up meeting mages on the spirits’ home turf when those willworkers pass over into the spirit lands. And though Dreamspeakers and other shamans are the mages most likely to meet such entities, any mage – even a Technocrat – can encounter them under the right (or wrong…) circumstances. All spirits have the Airt Sense Charm. For the rules dealing with spirit entities and their various abilities, see Chapter Nine, (pp. 488-495). Naturae Embodiments of natural forces and principles, Naturae resist the foolish trivia of Umbrood politics. Instead, these entities dwell in the Penumbra and Middle-Umbral Realms, reflecting the spiritual elements of our Earth. Ancient Forest-Heart (Grand Natura) Embodied in both the mortal realm and the Penumbra as a titanic tree at least 150 feet tall and 20 feet across at the base, a forest-heart entity personifies the spirit of old-growth wilderness. Every primal forest has at least one such spirit, and vast woodlands have several of them. Depending on the region, a forest-heart spirit could manifest as an ancient pine, sequoia, birch, willow, oak, or other form of tree indigenous to that area. If such a tree burns in its Earthly aspect, its ashes and remains disperse to form new trees that can hold its spirit. If that tree gets cut down in the mortal world, however, its spirit is destroyed – trapped, some folks say, in the bits of tree that get cut up, shipped far away, and transformed into furniture, ships, houses, and other wood-based constructions. And if that should happen, the forest literally loses its soul… at least for a time. Though essentially anchored to its tree, a forest-heart spirit sees and hears everything that happens within its woods. The whorls and contours of its bark and inner rings preserve its memories. Using animals and other spirits as its eyes, ears, and hands, this entity recalls, guides, and, to a degree, defends its territory. Although its senses and priorities are not those of a
632 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Willpower 8, Rage 4, Gnosis 7, Essence 200 Charms: Appear, Armor, Cleanse the Blight, Create Wind, Disorient, Forest Sense, Lightning Bolt, Mind Speech, Mist, Summon Wildlife (brings fierce animals to the spirit’s defense; 1 Essence per animal), Tracking, Umbraquake Animal Spirits (Gafflings and Jagglings) As animists have always known, animals have spirits too – not “souls” as people define that term (although they just might have souls too…), but spiritual personifications of the essence of each species. Beyond the obvious totem spirits, these animal spirits appear, in human terms, as Gaffling and Jaggling spirits that resemble the beast in question but possess mystic powers too. A mage, then, might encounter a crow spirit, serpent spirit, horse spirit, and so on – all with powers that suit their particular beast. In general, animal spirits look like normal animals (see the Bestiary), with the gifts of mental or physical speech; sapient personalities; and a few appropriate mythic powers like great speed, a paralyzing stare, and so forth. Given the vast array of potential animal spirits – which extends even to extinct beasts like titanic insects, dinosaurs, and other such creatures – we encourage the Storyteller to treat such powers as low-level rotes (Ranks 1-4, with an Arete between 2 and 6) or story elements based on the legendary talents of the associated animal. All animal spirits have the following Charms in addition to all others: Airt Sense, Appear, and Reform. Jagglings can Materialize (as per the animal type, with greater intellect), and have other Charms and powers as well. In Background Trait terms, such entities may become Allies or Familiars, too. A handful of examples includes: Crow Willpower 6, Rage 5, Gnosis 8, Essence 25 (Gaffling) to 50 (Jaggling) Charms: Influence, Materialize; some crow spirits also have Possession and Spirit Away. Powers: Foresight and prophecy (like a Time 3 Effect). Crow Jagglings can rouse spirits (Spirit 2); step sideways and lead ghosts to the Afterworlds (Spirit 3); or even open gates in the Gauntlet (Spirit 4). Serpent Willpower 5, Rage 6, Gnosis 8, Essence 20 (Gaffling) to 30 (Jaggling) Charms: Blighted Touch, Cleanse the Blight, Influence; some serpent spirits also have Materialize, Possession, and Shapeshift. Powers: Regeneration, Healing, and Injury (Life 2 and 3). Serpent Jagglings can send and enter dreams (Mind 3 and 4), locate and tap Quintessence (Prime 3), or control fate and fortune (Entropy 2). Horse Willpower 9, Rage 7, Gnosis 7, Essence 25 (Gaffling) to 50 (Jaggling) Charms: Armor, Materialize. Some horse spirits can also Create Wind, call Lightning Bolts, Spirit Away, and stomp up an Umbraquake. lesser-lived entity (like a human mage), a forest-heart can provide information and advice to a mortal who knows how to ask correctly. If nothing else, the forest-heart shapes the spirit of those woods: a friendly spirit presides over a calming, settled, relatively peaceful forest, whereas a hostile one manifests a tangled, dark, and hazardous domain. It’s worth noting that a forest-heart tends to reflect the spirit of intruders back upon themselves. Visitors who treat the woods disrespectfully often anger a forest-heart, who’ll take its deep-seated rage out upon every mortal who dares to enter that forest afterward. The wilderness, it’s been said, holds a grudge for a very long time… Forest-heart spirits take the long view of things; with few exceptions, mortal matters do not concern them. Things are born, things die – such is the way of the world. Only when a mortal (or a group of mortals) either delights or threatens the domain does a forest-heart care about brief human lives. A respectful traveler might earn the forest-heart’s goodwill, whereas a logging crew incites its anger. Until recently, the fury of a forest-heart was enough to discourage human intrusions; woodlands were vast, implacable mysteries to be avoided whenever possible and traversed along paths that tended to run far away from the forest’s heart. Within the last three centuries, that has changed drastically. Forest-heart spirits, however, are slow on the uptake – and because cold winds, falling trees, ferocious wolves, and walls of thorns are more likely to harm a hiker than a logging crew, those old tactics no longer protect a forest the way they once did. Even now, though, a mortal who respects the forest and understands its language can commune with a forest-heart spirit, assuming she knows the way to do so. Trees speak without words, and so that mortal needs to understand the subtle language of nature – not the hasty words of humanity – if she wants to speak with such a being. A forest-heart speaks though sensory impressions, and so a conversation with one involves sights, sounds, tactile sensations, and so forth, rather than words. Especially considering that those impressions often come from animals, birds, insects, and plants, not from human beings, a conversation with the forest-heart can be puzzling, frustrating, and apparently one-sided unless the mortal knows how to listen properly to what’s being said. Although a forest-heart spirit appreciates mortals who revere the ways of nature, it’ll probably want some tangible payment in exchange for anything beyond safe passage or a nice place to sleep for a night or two. Typical bargains with such entities include protection from loggers and other intruders, restoration of a damaged area, retribution for some injury against the woods, mortal stewardship, the purging of some great threat, or other, similar requests. Because mages tend to be more suited to such services than ordinary mortals are – and often know how to listen better than the average modern human being – Awakened mystics tend to recognize this spirit for what it is. Even so, certain unAwakened human beings can commune with a forest-spirit too… just ask Julia Butterfly Hill. Forest-hearts tend to rise from the center of an Umbral glen – usually with a potent Node marking the spot. Werewolves frequently build their caerns near such places (or even in them), so the mortal who wants to commune with a forest-heart spirit might find that conversation rather… challenging… to arrange!
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 633 Powers: Incredible speed (increased movement) and the ability to cross vast distances (Correspondence 3). Horse Jagglings can also co-locate (Correspondence 4), fly (Forces 3), or summon storms (Forces 4/ Prime 2). Owl Willpower 7, Rage 4, Gnosis 6, Essence 20 (Gaffling) to 40 (Jaggling) Charms: Influence, Materialize, Tracking. Certain owl spirits can also Create Wind, Cleanse the Blight, and employ Corruption. Powers: Foresight (Time 3). Owl Jagglings may manipulate fate and fortune, command decay (Entropy 2 or Entropy 4), or possess people and walk among their dreams (Mind 4). Monkey Willpower 7, Rage 9, Gnosis 7, Essence 25 (Gafflings) to 50 (Jagglings) Charms: Influence, Materialize, Shapeshift. Some monkey spirits can also Armor up, Spirit Away, and evoke an Umbraquake. Powers: The ability to craft or destroy solid elements (Matter 3). Monkey Jagglings may also sidestep distances (Correspondence 3), “monkey” with probability (Entropy 2), or heal or inflict massive injuries (Life 3). Totem Spirits For shamans both urban and otherwise, the totem spirits present an array of allies that few other people – even Awakened ones – understand. Ecstatics, Dreamspeakers, and other spiritworkers contact these entities, sometimes adopting them (and being adopted by them) as mystic kin – see the Totem Background Trait for details. Any mage with Spirit Sphere magick can deal with totem entities, though few mages bond with them the way that shamans do. Classified as Incarna Umbrood by Hermetic-type mages, totem spirits are essentially gods. Though they tend to manifest totem avatars – lesser entities that represent a sample of that spirit’s essence – such beings are immortal, boundless, and beyond the definitions of simple game stats. (For some sample totem avatars, see the animal spirits above.) On most levels, totems are far older than humanity, even when they take identities from human myths. Many represent animals, plants, or other natural forces, although some totems personify mythic beings and others represent ideas. A few technological totems seem drawn from the concepts and powers of the modern age, and though they lack the timeless majesty of their primal kin, they can be quite powerful in the industrialized world. The following entities reflect a tiny portion of the world’s potential totems. Although they’re among the totems a North American mage is most likely to meet, these spirits transcend geography, and have different identities and conceptions in other human cultures. Coyote, for example, is uniquely American, but Spider, and Crow have many faces, names, and personalities across the world. Human mages and shamanic werewolves interact very differently with totem spirits. Even so, the Werewolf: The Apocalypse line features a wide array of potential totems. That said, mage characters do not buy totems the way that werewolves do. A mage’s Totem Background reflects the level of contact he has with a given spirit; the spirit itself decides how intimate a bond the totem shares with its adopted human, and that bond can change over time. Again, see the Totem Background entry in Chapter Six for details. A handful of North American totem spirits includes… Raven & Crow The supreme Trickster, Raven is said to have either made or saved the world on numerous occasions. His little cousin Crow
634 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition is slightly more humble but no less clever. Smart, pragmatic, and unsettlingly knowledgeable, Raven and Crow have sinister connotations to some people and cultures for their habit of snacking on the dead. As a result, Raven and Crow are considered psychopomps, ferrying the spirits of the dead on to their rightful resting places… and occasionally bringing them back for revenge. Manifestations: Flocks of crows or ravens, exceptionally large and/ or vocal individual crows or ravens. Associations: Intellect, knowledge, death, prophecy and foresight, mortality, tricks. Brood: Corvid spirits, white ravens, mysterious people with long black hair, mischievous and often ominous folks in black – often with a snide or eerie sense of humor. Abilities: Enigmas, Medicine, Subterfuge. Bans: Raven-people aren’t expected to place much stock in earthly goods, properties, or concerns. Wealth is to be avoided unless it involves knowledge, secrets, or shiny things. Coyote Lusty Coyote is a carnal trickster, less intellectual than Raven but cunning as hell. Perched somewhere between Wile E. Coyote and the darker figure of traditional lore, Coyote (also Coyote-Sister) is a shape-changing survivor who never lets apparent disadvantages slow him down. Real-life coyotes thrive in bad circumstances, and so do Coyote’s chosen folk. Raggedly seductive, Coyote often sees his plans backfire in his face, yet he never stops looking for the next successful scheme. Manifestations: Singular coyotes, bodiless barks and cries in the night, disheveled yet attractive people with instinctive wit and feral behavior. Associations: Cunning, lust, tricks, shape-changing, cowardice, determination. Brood: Coyote spirits, magpies, vagabonds, and nomads. Abilities: Stealth, Subterfuge, Survival. Bans: Aside from forbidding the harm or killing of coyotes, Coyote puts no limitations on his chosen kin. Spider Crafty and delicate, Spider represents another ambivalent totem. On one hand, she’s the industrious creator of intricate masterworks… and yet she’s the treacherous bringer of poison and pain. Regarded sometimes as Grandmother Spider, Arachne, or the Widow, Spider holds an alien patience. Even folks who fear her (and most people do) recognize her beauty. Whether or not they want to get close enough to learn her many lessons is a personal decision. Spider herself rarely cares what lesser creatures want. To impress her, a human being must be as patient and dedicated as Spider herself. Manifestations: Huge spiders, arachnid swarms, Pattern Spider spirits, people with unsettlingly spiderlike characteristics, large webs, and other eerie (often nightmarish) apparitions. Associations: Poison, cleverness, craftsmanship, stability, patience, fear. Brood: Pattern Spiders, spider-kin, certain manifestations of the Fates. Abilities: Craftsmanship, Esoterica, Intimidation. Bans: Spider’s chosen are not sloppy, hasty, or easily frightened. She understands the killing of her children (after all, they eat one another too!), but cannot abide a clumsy, trembling human bug. Totem Traits Each totem-spirit entry has the following features: • Manifestations: When a totem sends an aspect of itself in physical form, that totem avatar usually manifests as an animal or human-like figure. Generally, the manifestation has the game Traits of a related animal or character, although it can – at the Storyteller’s discretion – be as powerful as the spirit (and the Storyteller) wants it to be. • Associations: As embodiments of animals, forces, and ideas, totem spirits have personalities and attitudes when they deal with humankind. Shamans and other human allies take on these associations when they deal with totem spirits, and might attract the attention of a totem by living out its associations before the two of them even meet each other. • Brood: Most totems, especially animal spirit totems, have a brood: lesser spirit Gafflings in its family. Such spirits reflect the totem’s Associations and identity: Raven sends spirit crows, crow girls, and raven men, but Glitch spits out electrical spirits and data-eater viruses. Unlike the totem itself, these spirits can be caught, fought, or contained… although a mage who does such a thing had better watch out for the associated totem afterward unless that totem has sent its broodling to aid its human ally. • Abilities: If a totem adopts a human ally, that ally gets a bonus to an Ability associated with that spirit. Most totems have several related Abilities, although a totem-bound shaman receives a bonus to only one of them. This bonus isn’t an official Trait that gets added on to the character’s Abilities – it’s a few additional bonus dice that get added to the character’s existing dice pool. If, say, Spider Chase gets adopted by the Spider totem (in game terms, getting the Totem Background), she’d receive a few dice added to her normal Crafts Trait, although the Trait itself would not go up. • Bans: Totem allies have certain things they should or should not do. Also called taboos, these bans reflect the deal a shaman strikes with the totem spirit in exchange for its favor. If that person breaks the ban, the totem might withdraw its favor… and, in game terms, the Background Trait. If that person wants to keep the spirit happy, he ought to make some sort of apology and atonement to the spirit. Until he does, that character loses dots in the Totem Background, and might even lose it for good if the ban was broken badly enough.
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 635 Glitch An Incarna of the computer age, Glitch embodies the many frustrations and strokes of misfortune that shouldn’t happen and yet happen all the time. Glitch fouls communication, mangles data, crashes systems, and otherwise renders mechanical and electrical goods into infuriating blocks of pure malfunction. Often appearing as a coruscating blot of electrical malice, Glitch seems to enjoy showing off the limits of human vanity. Technoshamans both revere and dread this totem. Although they can direct Glitch’s attention into enemy gear, its capricious favors have a nasty habit of taking out technology of all kinds… particularly when you least expect it. Manifestations: Electrical surges, crackling balls of energy, error messages (often displaying a snide sense of humor), the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Associations: Malfunction, humbleness, ruin, chaos amidst order, the error of relying too heavily on mortal technology. Brood: Computer spirits of all kinds, viruses, gremlinimps, Pattern Spiders with crackling auras and eerie deformities in their usually sleek forms. Abilities: Computer, Hypertech, Technology. Bans: Don’t get too proud – Glitch fucking hates that shit. City-Heart Typically known by the name of the city it embodies, City-Heart personifies the essence of the city itself. Urban shamans can petition such entities for protection, knowledge, and connection to the city’s unknown places. In return, these shamans devote themselves to the city’s welfare, either through political methods (working to improve the city and preserve its landmarks and character), humanitarianism (typically helping the city’s poor and dispossessed residents), vigilantism (protecting the city’s people), shadow work (assisting the city’s underground, often in ways that most citizens would consider criminal), or maintaining the city’s supernatural community (weeding out intruders and striking as much of a balance as possible among the various vampires, werecreatures, mages, and other Night-Folk throughout the city). Manifestations: Whispers, human figures who seem to epitomize the city’s personality, weather fluctuations, odd shadows, rustling newspapers, eerie vigilantes or criminals, and urban omens like messages spelled out on neon signs, graffiti, or randomly arranged trash. Associations: Whatever characteristics seem most appropriate to the city in question. Brood: Urban wildlife spirits (rats, roaches, alley cats, pigeons, raccoons, seagulls, etc.) and city people who embody the best and worst elements of the city in question. Abilities: Area Knowledge, Etiquette, Streetwise. Bans: A person devoted to a city should not leave that city if she can possibly help it. City-bound shamans tend to make offerings of material goods, money, service, or some combination of the three, all intended to make the city a better place to live. Truly wealthy city-shamans erect monuments, parks, urban projects, sports complexes, or other noteworthy buildings, whereas other shamans lobby fellow citizens to construct or restore landmarks that distinguish the place. The Man The embodiment of Authority with a capital “A,” The Man maintains a rigid and often oppressive sense of order. His suit is always pressed, dark, and clean. Though his guise shifts from culture to culture, the most common manifestation of The Man these days is a tall, looming man with short hair, dark glasses, and an implacable expression. In his best aspects, The Man wards off disorder, stabilizes his community, and safeguards people who follow The Rules. All too often, though, The Man and his devotees hound and destroy people and spirits who apparently threaten the localized sense of order. As international forces expand and deepen their reach, The Man can be found almost anywhere, the Big Brother of which we’re so often warned. Although Technocrats don’t make shamanic bargains with The Man, they might find themselves under his protection and benevolent guidance. Along with The Machine, this is one of the two exceptions to the rule forbidding Technocrats to purchase the Totem Background, and those characters certainly don’t see themselves as shamans dealing with spirits. Such nonsense is clearly Deviant and should be purged at the first opportunity. Manifestations: Scary spirit men, often appearing as cops, executives, Men in Black, stern priests, and other dominant father figures. The Paradox Spirit known as Judgment might be a manifestation of The Man. Associations: Order, authority, oppression, protection, strictness, supervision, preservation of the status quo. Brood: The Man favors Black Suits, for very obvious reasons. Abilities: Intimidation, Leadership, Melee. Bans: The Man cannot countenance disorder, disrespect, chaos, cowardice, or other deviant behavior. Mary Jane At the opposite end of the spectrum, Mary Jane offers relaxation, fun, playfulness, and a sense that things can be put off till later or enjoyed more fully than they usually are. Often appearing as a cute hippie girl in ‘60s-style attire, Mary Jane watches over people who hurt (often soothing their pain), folks who like to bend the edges of a stressful day or otherwise break through mental barriers that impede a joyful approach to life. Despite her frivolous appearance, however, Mary Jane’s a healer with potent medicinal lore. Her connection to healing is quite ancient, really. Beyond her obvious ties to stoner culture, Mary Jane has been associated with peace, the easing of pain and constraints, and the softening of inner blockades. Arbitrating conflicts of body, mind, and soul, she helps her chosen people slow down and enjoy the world… although sometimes they enjoy it a bit too much for their own good. Manifestations: Clouds of pot-scented smoke, the hippie girl, and other incarnations of cannabis-associated archetypes (a Beat-style bohemian, laid back jazzman, stoner dude, and so forth) under a variety of names. Associations: Release, bliss, healing, insight, laziness, distraction.
636 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Brood: White birds, smoke spirits, fireflies, and people who seek comfort. Abilities: Esoterica, Etiquette, Medicine. Bans: Mary Jane abhors violence and will not ally herself with people who take pleasure in harming other living beings. She also isn’t fond of authority figures, and although she might tend to peace accords, she won’t aid people who feel rigid unless they want to loosen up. The Machine It’s everywhere these days, this manifestation of our industrialized world. Once a clunky, steaming block of automated might, The Machine now takes the form of sleek technology, glowing computers, miniaturized gadgets, living cars, and other toys of the modern age. It’s been said that technology has no soul… but that’s not true. Anyone who’s ever dealt with a quirky computer or a particularly smooth machine, everyone who’s ever cursed her car or shouted at his TV, each mechanic and technician and end-user and inventor, has conferred a little bit of Essence into the totem-soul of machinery. For folks who revere technology – especially imaginative Etherite gadgeteers and the devotees of Iteration X – The Machine is an animate ideal… not a god, exactly, but the conscious and immortal distillation of mechanized perfection. Some theorists speculate that the extradimensional Realm called Autocthonia could be the heaven where such an entity resides. That’s nonsense, of course… Machines aren’t deities. Still, all the energy of focused human devotion has to go somewhere… and just as Plato speculated about a realm of idealized forms, it stands to reason that the omnipresence of technology has a place somewhere out there in the reaches of possibility… and it’s very much alive. Manifestations: Sparks, clouds of smoke, mechanical devices of all kinds that seem… and sometimes act… alive. Associations: Technology, perfection, industriousness, stability, functionality, luxury, oppression, soullessness. Brood: Pattern Spiders, mechanical people, animated vehicles, and other machines. Abilities: Crafts, Hypertech, Technology. Bans: The Machine requires service, inventiveness, precision, a commitment to technological innovation and repair, and a relentless pursuit of self-perfection. Elementals Manifestations of elemental forces, these entities range from near-mindless Gafflings to Elemental Lords and Ladies – essentially Incarna of their respective principles, with Realms that favor their chosen element. Hermetic wizards and other classical high-ritual types have worked with such entities for millennia; more recently, mad scientists learned to employ elemental spirits for certain errands… discovering, in the process, that modern innovations like metal, glass, and electrical power have inspired their own elemental spirits… or were, perhaps, inspired by them… Such entities often create Environmental Hazards, as detailed in Chapter Nine under the section of that name. In addition to the Charms listed below, every elemental spirit also has Element Sense and a Meld Charm that allows these entities to shift into or out of their native element; this costs two Essence points, and works only within that spirit’s appropriate element. In the wake of an elemental’s passage, the element might be disturbed for a turn or so… possibly, as with earth and metal elementals, until something else reshapes that material. Air Elemental Manifesting as an ephemeral girl, breezes, or a column of wind, an air elemental remains immaterial – visible, perhaps, but ultimately untouchable. If she chooses to speak, such a spirit whispers in a voice that only mages and other spirit-attuned creatures can hear. Willpower 3, Rage 8, Gnosis 7, Essence 40 Charms: Appear, Cleanse the Blight, Create Wind, Reform, Updraft Earth Elemental Composed of lumpy dirt and stone, this vaguely masculine elemental speaks in a grating voice and refuses to hurry along. Like the earth itself, he does what he does in his own sweet time. Willpower 10, Rage 8, Gnosis 5, Essence 40 Charms: Armor, Materialize, Stone Fists (as Blast, but hurls stone instead), Shapeshift, Umbraquake Fire Elemental Hungry and crackling, the genderless fire spirit consumes everything that will burn. If happy, this entity remains a small glowing ember speaking in puffs of smoke; outraged, it explodes into a howling conflagration, igniting everything in its path. Willpower 5, Rage 10, Gnosis 5, Essence 30 Charms: Blast, Create Fire, Materialize Water Elemental Often, but not always, embodied as a seductive young woman, the water elemental’s smooth voice and sinuous form recall the mermaids and sirens inspired by the sea. Her forms echo the nature of the water from which she comes: a swamp hag, spring child, river nymph, or oozing sludge girl. Willpower 6, Rage 4, Gnosis 8, Essence 30 Charms: Blast, Cleanse the Blight, Flood, Healing, Materialize Electricity Elemental Impersonal and fearsome, this bright snapping figure flashes like oddly human lightning, arcing between conductive materials and sizzling everything that can burn. If such an elemental speaks, its words buzz like furious metal bees. Willpower 6, Rage 7, Gnosis 5, Essence 40 Charms: Control Electrical Systems, Lightning Bolts, Short Out Glass Elemental Glittering with jagged edges or gleaming with unbroken liquid grace, a glass elemental can shatter itself and fling its bits across open space, then pull itself back together with the
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 637 slick fluidity of gleaming CGI. Such beings speak with sibilant cadence and seem, by human standards, to be quite vain. Willpower 4, Rage 7, Gnosis 7, Essence 45 Charms: Blast, Materialize, Shatter Glass Ice Elemental Temperatures plunge if this elemental appears. Most often embodied by a frozen man, a glittering ice queen, or a shrieking blizzard cloud, the ice elemental hisses like falling snow or cracks out its words like breaking ice. In its wake, frost patterns etch themselves across nearby surfaces, and ice leaches the warmth and traction from everything within the elemental’s cold reach. Willpower 6, Rage 5, Gnosis 8, Essence 25 Charms: Blast, Create Wind, Freeze, Frozen Breath, Ice Prison (as Calcify, except manifested as ice), Slip Metal Elemental Shaped from specific metal types (steel, iron, bronze, copper, etc.), these dense entities range from smooth-skinned humanoids to lumpy blocks of ore. In all forms, metal spirits are incredibly heavy, remarkably flexible, and damn near impossible to hurt. When they speak, such elemental voices echo as if across some great distance. Their words sound sharp and stilted, and their movements ring like clashing metal plates. Willpower 8, Rage 4, Gnosis 6, Essence 30 Charms: Armor, Materialize, Shapeshift, Soul Reading Storm Spirit Swirling up in thick crackling clouds, embodiments of tempest combine several different elements in one. Water, air, and electricity spin through a storm spirit’s form, lashing out with wind, rain, lightning, and angry thundered words. Such entities grow far larger than other elementals, too – from the size of a “personal raincloud” to the span of a football field (in which case, the Essence Trait is two or three times the usual amount). Willpower 8, Rage 8, Gnosis 4, Essence 50 Charms: Appear, Cleanse the Blight, Create Wind, Lightning Bolts, Umbraquake Wood Elemental Shaped like a skeletal (though perhaps quite lovely) woman, the wood spirit evokes the fabled dryad no matter where she happens to be from. Certain wood spirits resemble horned men,
638 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition too: naked, rustic figures with ruddy skins and often leafy faces, darting between trees. Such entities almost never speak; if they do, their words whisper like the breeze between branches or clack with hollow resonance. Willpower 4, Rage 4, Gnosis 5, Essence 25 Charms: Cleanse the Blight, Element Sense (within wood), Materialize, Shapeshift, Soul Reading Minions Servitors of greater powers or principles, Minions display an intellect of sorts. Some of them follow an instinctive purpose with only the faintest glimmer of sentience. Others can be as cunning and perceptive as any mortal human, though perhaps not cosmically aware like the greater spirit entities. Memophores (Digital Web Entities) Entities composed of living information, memophores (also known as daemons, zerks, data beasts, info elementals, and other humanocentric names) display self-willed intellect. Originally, it’s been said, these Digital Web inhabitants begin as humancrafted computer programs. In time, however, they gain sentience through enigmatic combinations of Quintessence, information, and the invested attention and belief of the Masses. Such origins certainly spawned the early generations of data beasts. Newer ones, however, appear to generate spontaneously from the essence of the Digital Web itself – embodying popular concepts, perhaps, but never programmed in the human sense of that word. Not long ago, netizens considered such entities virtual animals or, in more flattering terms, Internet angels embodying the Divine Will of the Web. Memophores have their own ideas about their origins, ranging from bland acceptance to existential contemplation or religious fervor. Simple entities follow the basic dictates of game-system characters or data-courier programs given hints of personality. Their advanced counterparts, on the other hand, seem as real as any human netizen, with all the emotional complexities that such reality entails. The spontaneous existence and deepening sophistication of the various memophores (a name, incidentally, that many such beings reject) reveals the continued evolution of the Web as a cosmos in its own right. Where once it was viewed as the creation of Virtual Adepts (a perspective many Adepts still share), the Digital Web appears to be a self-generating, self-regulating reality… one that’s tied, without a doubt, to human technology but no longer dependent upon it… if, indeed, it ever was dependent upon it in the first place. That revelation, in turn, has thoughtful mages pondering the origins of humanity… and considering the origins of the first memophores, the potential answers aren’t always flattering. Twenty-first century memophores range from simplistic clouds of information or digitized reflections of CGI to full-bodied, eloquent beings with impressive powers and capabilities. Game-wise, these characters possess five Attribute Traits – Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence, and Wits – plus a range of Abilities that suit an individual memophore’s nature and personality. The overall appearance and agendas of such characters depend upon their origins: office programs inspire dry, simple memophores with industrious personalities and rigid temperaments; hacking programs have evolved into rebellious anarchistic memophores, whereas advertising spawns loud, garish, and frequently annoying entities. Originally divided up into power levels (see Digital Web 2.0), today’s memophores often get referred to by category ratings… in much the same way that meteorologists refer to storms by category ratings. This in itself says a lot about the way that human netizens view their data-elemental peers who keep evolving in the unpredictable cosmos of the Digital Web. Category 1: Traits of 1, three dots of Abilities, three health levels Category 2: Traits of 2, six dots of Abilities, four health levels Category 3: Traits of 3, 10 dots of Abilities, six health levels Category 4: Traits of 4, 15 dots of Abilities, eight health levels Category 5: Traits of 5, 20 dots of Abilities, 10 health levels Category 6: Traits of 6, 25 dots of Abilities, 15 health levels A few sample memophores include: • LOLCat: Cuteness elemental, often manifesting as an adorable (often young) animal in an endearing situation. Tends to speak in abbreviated childish banter (“I can haz…?”). Apparently immortal, this shapeshifting entity seems to be totally impervious to harm, avoiding conflicts through the sheer intensity of its charm. Has an uncanny talent for making people smile. Traits: Category 1; Expression 3 • Screamer: Ranting dude or lady with a monumental (sometimes literal) chip on their shoulder about some cause or aggravation. OFTEN SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS, Screamer tends to be extremely annoying… and, these days, he seems to be everywhere. Traits: Category 2; Brawl 2, Expression 3, Research 1 • Link: Eager information courier, often embodied as a flash of light illuminating potential areas of interest and connection. Speaks either in the warm voice of a young woman or the confident tones of a mature man. Apparently devoted to creating greater connections between people and information, possibly as an act of religious fervor. Traits: Category 3; Etiquette 4, Research 5 • Nerdrage: Seething cloud of aggressive and often incoherent insults, sometimes manifesting as a white human male of unflattering appearance and demeanor. Tends to be grotesquely sexist, racist, homophobic, and obsessed with bodily functions and related insecurities. Fanatically fixated upon pop-culture trivia and/ or paranoid political theories; often has impressive resources to draw upon. Can occasionally be talked into something resembling pleasant conversation by an apparently sympathetic peer. Traits: Category 4; Computer 3, Esoterica (geek culture) 4, Expression 3, Research 3, Technology 2
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 639 • The Leak: Coruscating dark swirl of information, seeping through shadows and cracks, sometimes taking on vaguely human shapes. Rarely speaks, and whispers when it does so, in a sibilant voice with no discernable gender or culture. Occasionally, that voice sounds like a crowd of people speaking urgently in hushed tones. Dedicated to exposing secrets from any source, the Leak possesses a knack for slipping through computer security systems, and occasionally allies itself with mortal hackers who promise to put that information to good use. Traits: Category 5; Computer 5, Research 5, Stealth 3, Subterfuge 2 • Non: Masked and black-robed person of undetectable gender. Speaks in accented English, though that accent ranges from upper-crust English to Latin-American Spanish, Academy-formal French, and a vaguely Nordic tone not tied to any specific nationality. Non honors no country nor ideology beyond self-government and the will of the People. That said, Non despises secrecy, especially among powerful and abusive institutions like banks and governments. Occasionally manifests sharp blades and speaks with great eloquence. Allied with the Leak, Non despises the Technocracy and has been included on several internal kill-lists… none of which acknowledge that Non exists only as self-willed information. Traits: Category 6; Academics (political philosophy) 3, Athletics 2, Expression 3, Melee 3, Research 3, Stealth 5 Pattern Spider (Technology Minions) Spirits of order and static reality, Pattern Spiders embody the forces of technology in the spirit world. The least-powerful of them appear as steel-and-crystal spiders an inch or two across; the largest approach, or even surpass, the size and mass of a small car. Most Pattern Spiders tend to incorporate pieces of various technological devices in their bodies and limbs: steam vents, vacuum tubes, pneumatic cylinders, integrated circuits, and so on. Most of these beings dwell in the Penumbra, always close to centers of advanced technology, indoctrination, and other centers of material and spiritual stasis. Although they reflect the growing influence of technology in the material world, these cybernetic spiders cannot materialize in the mortal realm. Instead, they work to make certain that reality remains as static as possible in the regions where the spiders are most common. Media centers, classrooms, factories, construction sites, military installations, and Technocracy Constructs host hundreds, often thousands, of these entities per site. Yet despite their apparently symbiotic relationship, very few Technocrats realize that these things even exist… much less regard them as allies. To the handful of Technocrats who’ve seen Pattern Spiders first-hand, the spiders look like one more weird-ass alien life-form to be attacked and purged whenever possible. As for the spiders themselves, they seem oblivious to the concept of individuality or independent thought. When they bother to communicate at all, these near-mindless beings refer to “us,” not “I,” address humans in collective terms, and regard their own existence as a simple task, not a complicated journey. The idea that one might exist apart from the whole, much less pursue an individual existence, remains beyond their grasp. Even so, certain mages have managed to strike deals with Pattern Spiders – usually by giving them a project, leading them to an Umbral location in need of repair, or otherwise giving these industrious spirits something to do. Virtual Adepts sometimes bond with the data creepers that swarm around their workstations, and Etherite Scientists study the fascinating manifestations of insectoid energy-pattern loci in the counterdimensional pockets within their labs. Shamans who deal with werewolves refer to these creatures as “servants of the Weaver,” regarding them as symptoms of a stagnant world. Yet for those mages who understand the greater benefits of technology, Pattern Spiders can be potent allies. Weaving webs of solidified reality, Pattern Spiders spin pattern webs around flaws, ruins, or disruptive parties who threaten the integrity of localized reality. In game terms, they use the Calcify Charm to capture intruders, and the Solidify Reality Charm to stabilize the surroundings on a metaphysical level. Certain Pattern Spiders have other Charms as well, reflecting a control over electrical, mechanical, and data-storage systems. In story terms, these beings spin their webs with tireless precision, tiny data creepers ferrying information through electric networks or weaving it into knots of stored data. Although they don’t appear in material reality, their work reinforces things like the Gauntlet or the feel and stability of a given place. A handful of the older entities can vibrate their webs in such a way as to cause pain to folks in materialized reality… an effect that goes a long way toward explaining the headaches and bodily discomfort people get when they spend too much time around certain types of technology… Willpower 6, Rage 4-7, Gnosis 6, Essence 25-50 Charms: Calcify, Solidify Reality. Some large spiders also have Control Electrical Systems, Short Out, Lightning Bolt. Paradox Manifestations All mages fear these entities, which show up only in response to Paradox backlashes. Some mages refer to them as “reality’s immune system” or “Technocratic shock troops,” but in truth, these beings operate by their own rules and serve no obvious masters beyond the incontrovertible principles of cosmic reality itself. Most of these entities seem aligned with a particular Sphere; if so, that Sphere has been listed next to the Paradox Spirit’s name. Judgment (Destructive Vulgar Magick of Any Sphere) When careless mages endanger the Masses with obviously vulgar magick, Judgment might appear. Inspired by the collective faith and fear that Sleepers attribute to their laws, this spirit manifests as a high-ranking member of the local law enforcement, like a police detective, SWAT team member, or Military Police officer. In especially lawless areas – like war zones, urban wastelands, criminal subcultures, or night-culture undergrounds – Judgment shows up like some paranormal
640 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition vigilante, straight out of an action flick or comic-book movie… with all the violence that implies. In whichever form he wears, Judgment first tries to arrest the offending mage, barking a terse warning along the lines of “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.” If the mage surrenders, Judgment snaps handcuffs on the mage and hustles her off to a waiting car (also a manifestation of this spirit). If she resists – which she probably will – Judgment proceeds to clean her clock and then haul her into the waiting car. That nearby car resembles an ominous vehicle of punishment: a cop car, paddy wagon, black limousine, superhero transport, armored military vehicle, horse-drawn hearse, or whatever else seems appropriate. A few seconds after the mage enters Judgment’s vehicle, Judgment and the offender appear in the spirit’s Paradox Realm. To anyone else who observes these proceedings, the vehicle starts to drive off… and then vanishes in a cloud of mist or drives off into the enveloping darkness of night. Examining the location where the vehicle vanished, a mage with at least three dots in Spirit can both determine where the vehicle has gone and possibly (with Spirit 4) travel to that Realm… if he dares. Once the mage reaches Judgment’s Realm, the spirit places her in a jail cell within an otherwise empty police station, then leaves her to contemplate her actions. In this cell, no magick functions and mundane escape attempts all fail. After an agonizing wait (24 hours or so in the outside world, an apparent eternity for the mage), the prisoner faces arraignment for her crimes, and she must defend her actions to a heartless, merciless, judge — who is, of course, Judgment. If the mage lacks an excellent defense (self-defense, protecting the lives of Sleepers, or some similarly good reason), Judgment then locks the mage up in another cell for several years… or at least until someone manages to free her. A series of successful Social Trait-based rolls, backed up by evidence, might sway the judge; a bad attitude, on the other hand, merely assures a long and lonely sentence… Given the implacable power of Judgment and his Realm, this spirit might be an aspect of the totem Incarna called The Man. Although Judgment has been known to appear in a female guise (usually to punish sexist offenders), this entity almost always manifests as a large, imposing, and humorless man. Willpower 7, Rage 9, Gnosis 6, Essence 60 Charms: Armor, Blast Flame (appears as a pistol or other appropriate weapon), Calcify, Disorient, Influence (“Surrender”), Materialize, Mist (as darkness, fog, or “smoke bombs”), Reform, Shapeshift (only when changing roles), Solidify Reality, Spirit Away, Track. Judgment also manifests a constant field of six dice in countermagick, plus the “field of Judgment” aura that renders all outside attacks ineffective. Materialized Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 6, Stamina 6; use Gnosis for Social and Mental Traits Abilities: Alertness 4, Awareness 4, Brawl 6, Drive 3, Firearms 6, Intimidation 8, Investigation 4, Law 5, Melee 6, Streetwise 5, Subterfuge 3 Materialized Health Levels: 20 Wrinkle (Typically Time, Sometimes Other Spheres) One of the most infamous and powerful Paradox spirits, Wrinkle is also, in some ways, one of the least hostile. Appearing as an exceedingly old man or woman in a perfectly tailored, but extremely wrinkled,
Appendix I: Allies and Antagonists 641 white tuxedo, Wrinkle walks up to the offending mage and politely tells the mage that she’s caused a disturbance… and that he’ll help the mage repair it. “Old Man Wrinkle” then asks the mage if she’s willing to fix the problem. If the mage agrees, then she instantly finds herself, with her companions, back a few moments in the past, one turn before she cast the spell that caused the Paradox backlash that caught Wrinkle’s attention – and if she then chooses to avoid using magick that time around, all is forgiven. Should the mage elect to use magick again anyway – and if doing so brings about two or more points of Paradox – she’ll find herself talking to Wrinkle again. With diminishing levels of politeness, he asks her to try another approach. If treated respectfully, Wrinkle can be exceedingly patient, willing to allow the mage up to three tries; that mage, however, cannot spend Willpower to stave off Paradox effects. Mages can’t cheat Wrinkle in this fashion. If the mage mouths off to Wrinkle, or if she cannot find a way out of her situation that doesn’t involve creating more than one point of Paradox, she disappears from consensual reality and finds herself frozen in time – conscious and aware, but removed from existence. Trapped in a hellish no-time space, she periodically receives new visits from Wrinkle. If she agrees to behave herself, she finds herself back at that moment of choice. And if not, she may be gone for a very, very long time… Like the old-school spirit that he is, Wrinkle places great value on good manners and heartfelt apologies. By that same token, he has no patience with rudeness or pride. Obnoxious mages disappear from reality, their pasts edited so that everyone believes they died in some earlier tragedy. From time to time (so to speak…), a long-lost mage reappears, shaken, aged, and nearly mad with isolation. More often, though, a rude offender disappears for good… Willpower 8, Rage 5, Gnosis 8, Essence 30 Charms: Freeze Time, Materialize, Time-Editing (3 Essence), Unbirth (erases mage from reality; 10 Essence) Powers: Freeze Time, Edit Reality (see above for details) Materialized Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, use Gnosis for all other Traits Abilities: Alertness 5, Enigmas 4, Intimidation 5 Materialized Health Levels: 6 Sendings Certain spirits are simply messages – disembodied communications with images and voices and apparent consciousness but no form to speak of, even in an ephemeral sense. In older times, these Sendings were considered omens, visions, or divine messages; in the wake of the Avatar Storm, they were viewed – rightly or otherwise – as communication from Masters trapped beyond the Gauntlet. Cosmic theories suggested that these Sendings had forged together rampant disembodied consciousness, bits of myth, shards of broken Avatars, fragmented ghosts, legendary heroes, and perhaps even aspects of lost and shattered gods. And although these entities do appear to have minds and identities of their own, their ultimate nature remains unknown. In game terms, a Sending is a walking story element, an enigma whose motivations and origins are whatever the Storyteller wants them to be. Although these spirits might take the name and form of familiar archetypes or legends – Loki, Br’er Rabbit, Mother Mary and so on – they don’t inhabit a relatable form for long. These are flashes in the sky that look like faces; wandering strangers who speak a few words and then disappear; the crying child or pathetic old man who reaches for a touch of kindness before fading away. A Sending can be the wizened twin of a player character, glimpsed in a bustling crowd but gone when they try to find him; or the strange, overheard words that come from nowhere when a mage’s back is turned. One might resemble a panhandler on the side of the road whose face flickers into a skull, or the image of a distant parent when the mage drives past. Another might be a heap of broken roadkill that gets up, shakes itself vigorously, and walks off into the woods. In short, a Sending is a dash of weirdness added to your Mage chronicle. Though a Perception + Enigmas roll might suggest its identity, the truth behind such a vision should remain one of those odd moments that define a magickal life.
642 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Do not be misled by our errors, our lack of vision, or the fear that makes men cruel; we serve a reality, my child, though we may not always perceive it clearly. — Dr. Mulish Latimer, from Dion Fortune’s The Demon Lover Merits and Flaws Mages, as we’ve seen, are exceptional people. And so, certain Traits – the Merits and Flaws referred to in Chapter Six – mark elements of distinction in a mage’s life. Merits favor that mage with certain blessings, but Flaws curse him with particular frailties. Each Trait either costs points to buy (Merits) or else supplies extra points (Flaws) that you can use to purchase other things. As noted in Chapter Six (see p. 253 and p. 256), a player can purchase any number of Merits but can take a maximum of seven points of Flaws. As an optional rule, a character may instead have any one or two Flaws, regardless of their point cost, but the character is limited to only those one or two Flaws, and no more. Generally, Merits and Flaws cannot be purchased after character creation, although the Storyteller may decide to give them to characters in place of experience points if those Traits seem appropriate to the events within the chronicle. Depending upon those events, a player might be able to use experience points to buy off a troublesome Flaw. In all cases, Merits and Flaws are optional Traits. The Storyteller may disallow some, all, or none of them – it’s her choice. Merits and Flaws fall into five distinct categories: physical, mental, social, supernatural, and genetic. The last category reflects Flaws based upon the Enhancement Background or other long-term alterations to a character’s physical form. Given the dozens of Merits and Flaws presented throughout the Mage line, the full range of Merits and Flaws is too vast to fit within this small Appendix. You can find a compilation of additional Traits in the sourcebook The Book of Secrets. Several of the Merits and Flaws presented below have been modified from their old-school origins, in order to reflect rules changes in Mage 20 and the World of Darkness series as a whole. Merits Extra edges for the Awakened world, Merits can be purchased by any sort of character. Normal humans don’t usually have supernatural Merits, but they can easily have physical, mental, or social ones. Even so, many of these Traits tend to be unusual unless the person moves in fairly heroic circles. Acute Senses (1 or 3 pt. Physical Merit) Your physical senses are unusually sharp, capturing nuances that few people ever notice. In game terms, your character Appendix II: Odd Ends
Appendix II: Odd Ends 643 Dark Triad (3 pt. Social Merit) A charming (and chilling) blend of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sociopathy makes you a smooth-talking rule-breaker. Many people find your Fuck Authority attitude seductive, and they follow your lead even when it’s not in their best interests to do so. To you, however, these devotees are simply toys – useful and enjoyable, of course, but ultimately expendable. Your own pleasure and convenience are the only vital things in life. A natural Merit for cult leaders, tempters, Fallen mages, and corporate tycoons, the Dark Triad adds three dice to all of your Seduction, Manipulation, Leadership, Subterfuge, and Charisma-based rolls. The fact that your character doesn’t truly care about the people she inspires isn’t readily apparent except to people who know what to look for. Because social consequences do not hinder your character, people find her exhilarating to be around. As a result, folks continue to follow and defend her, even when her actions should be indefensible. Despite its obvious power, this Merit contains a significant story-based downside: Dark Triad folks are amoral bastards who act only according to their own perceived interests. Even on a malignant Path, such sociopathy becomes dangerous, especially when other people notice that individual’s behavior. Not even the Nephandi trust such a person once her tendencies become clear – after all, she might sell out the Fallen as easily as she sells out anybody else. The Storyteller may decide that this Merit isn’t suitable for player characters, and restrict it to supporting roles. For more details about extreme self-focus, see Antisocial Personality Disorder on the Derangements sidebar, (p. 649). Stormwarden/ Quantum Voyager (3 or 5 pt. Supernatural Merit) Despite the fury of the Avatar Storm, some people remain immune. With this Merit (known as Quantum Voyager for Technocratic characters), you possess that precious rare immunity – the ability to reach through and travel beyond the Gauntlet without suffering the effects of the Storm. For 3 points, your character can pass without harm through the Gauntlet. For 5 points, she can take everyone and everything she touches and desires to protect. Correspondence-based touching protects a warded character as well as a physical touch, but a person that the mage does not want to protect will suffer the usual Avatar Storm effects even if he happens to be touching her at the time. Obviously, this Merit doesn’t apply if the Avatar Storm never happened in your chronicle. This protection does not in any way protect against Disembodiment or other potential hazards of the Otherworlds. Under the Mage Revised metaplot, Stormwardens are incredibly rare – almost legendary – and fiercely hoarded by the Awakened groups. Ties (3 pt. Social Merit) You’ve got friends in high places, low places, or places in between. Maybe you know folks within the local police force, the gang scene, or an organized-crime cartel. Each type of Tie – a Merits and Flaws Name Cost/ Bonus Type Merits Acute Senses 1 or 3 Physical Berserker 4 Mental Dark Triad 3 Social Language 1 Mental Stormwarden/ Quantum Voyager 3 or 5 Supernatural Ties 3 Social Too Tough to Die 5 Physical True Faith 7 Supernatural Umbral Affinity 4 Supernatural Flaws Addiction 1 or 3 Mental Construct 2 Social Cursed 1 to 5 Supernatural Deranged 3 or 5 Mental Echoes 1 to 5 Supernatural Enemy 1 to 5 Social PTSD 2 to 5 Mental Stress Atavism 4 Mental reduces the difficulty of her Perception-based rolls by -2. At the 1-point level, a single sense (vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell) is more acute than usual; at the 3-point level, all five physical senses are equally sharp. Language (1 pt. Mental Merit) Beyond your native language, you understand another form of communication. Each 1-pt. Language Merit reflects a single language, typically in its written form as well as the spoken one. Mages – especially Hermetic wizards, Syndicate diplomats, and Technocratic field ops – tend to know a number of languages, both common (French, Latin, Mandarin, Spanish) and obscure (Old Kingdom Hieroglyphics, High Akkadian, Jovitos). If you possess five Language Merits or more, then you’ve begun to understand the principles of language itself and can try to unravel languages you don’t already know (Intelligence + Enigmas, difficulty 7 or higher). Characters should have background-based reasons for understanding various languages. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that a barrio teenager might know English, Portuguese, several dialects of Spanish, and possibly even Arabic. If she’s also got German, Sanskrit, and Classical Greek on her character sheet, however, then someone’s got some explaining to do.
644 Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Merit that must be purchased separately for 3 points per group – reflects a culture in which your character has connections, goodwill, and a small amount of influence. These people are not your friends or servants (there are several Background Traits for that sort of relationship), but they might do the occasional favor for you. In story terms, the Ties Merit grants your character certain connections. Game-wise, those connections lower the difficulty rolls in certain situations, depending upon what you’re trying to do: • Fulfill a subtle request (pulling a license number, score some goodies, get an invite to some exclusive function, etc.): -2 difficulty • Request a significant favor (plant a news story, spread a rumor, tamper with evidence, etc.): -1 difficulty Your character must have some story-based reasons for those ties – membership in the group, family legacy, favors owed to him, and so forth – and will need to maintain them. Actions that could hurt his relationship with the group might destroy this Merit too. The Storyteller can deny certain types of Ties to player characters and has the final say about whether or not the connections will do what the character requests. As mentioned above, different Ties must be purchased separately; each one costs 3 points. Potential Ties include: Local Police, Local Underworld, National Police, Organized Crime Cartel, Local Media Outlet, National Media Outlet, Black Market, Drug Trade, Hollywood, Interpol, Club Scene, Paparazzi, Local Journalism, Evangelical Community, Terrorism Underground, Counterterrorism Network, International Journalism, Corporations, and so forth. Berserker/ Stress Atavism (4 pt. Mental Merit or Flaw) Folks don’t like you when you’re angry. In combat, you become a veritable monster, destroying everything and everyone in sight. In certain ways, this is a blessing, in others, a curse – for although your dedication to slaughter has undeniable benefits, it’s also a distinct liability… especially if you belong to a group that prizes discipline rather than brutality. As both a Merit and a Flaw, this Trait has the same effects: under intense stress (combat, injury, disgrace, the death or crippling of a comrade, and so forth), the red haze kicks in. A failed Willpower roll (difficulty 8) leads to a berserk rampage. Your character gains three temporary Bruised health levels, ignores wound penalties, and adds two dice to her Strength and one die to her Stamina until every enemy within easy reach or sight is dead or incapacitated. That’s the good part; the bad part is that everyone becomes your enemy. Allies, enemies, and bystanders alike all look like targets until the blood-trance fades. Magick and strategic thinking become impossible, and your character uses every weapon in her hands for maximum carnage. Unless someone knocks her unconscious, incapacitates or kills her, or simply leaves her alone for several minutes (during which time she destroys everything within reach), she remains stuck in kill mode. Is this a Merit or a Flaw? That depends. If your character belongs to a group that prizes bloodlust and has the luxury of mass murder in the modern world (that is, she’s a shock-troop “cleaner” or an elite warrior for a wetwork organization), then it’s a Merit; if she belongs to a group that demands subtlety, control, and restraint, then it’s a definite Flaw. Either way, your character is the loosest of cannons – aimed in a convenient direction and then left alone to burn out or explode. Umbral Affinity (4 pt, Supernatural Merit) Something in your background grants you an innate affinity for the Otherworlds. Perhaps you have some distant relation to shapeshifter blood, or a Pagan heritage that links you to the oldest of Old Ways. Whatever the source might be, you can travel further and longer in the Otherworlds than most mortal humans can manage. Game-wise, your character suffers no ill effects from first- and second-degree Acclimation (see Chapter Nine, pp. 482-483), and all other stages affect her at one stage less than usual. Beyond that, the character does not need to worry about Disembodiment until six full moon-cycles (roughly six months) have passed. In general, the character feels at home in most strange Umbral Realms, and she might be recognized as a natural traveler who has an innate right to be there. Too Tough to Die (5 pt. Physical Merit) You’re badass enough to shrug off injuries. They still harm you, but they don’t stop you. Game-wise, this Merit allows your character to soak lethal damage – NOT aggravated damage. Story-wise, those gunshots, knife wounds, broken bones, and so forth still tear your character up – he’s not bouncing shotgun rounds off his chest. By soaking the associated health levels, however, your character can push on through wounds that would cripple or kill most folks. Lethal injuries require the usual amount of time to heal. Soaking is not healing. If the Storyteller decides to use the Cinematic Damage option (Chapter Nine, p. 412), this Merit has no purpose and does not apply. True Faith (7 pt. Merit) Strong belief is essential for a mage. You, however, hold stronger beliefs than usual. Possessing convictions in a greater outside power, you can channel that power for miraculous feats that go beyond mere magick. Game-wise, your character has one dot of True Faith – a potent force, in the World of Darkness, that reflects devotion to a god or pantheon. Despite the usual association between Faith and Christianity, your character can belong to any sincere creed with an established moral code and historical legacy. (Sorry, but True Faith in postmodern satires like the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not count.) A Technocrat can hold